The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent a final rule on the amount of ethanol and other biofuels that oil refiners must blend into their fuel over the next three years to the White House for review, according to a federal website.
The news puts the agency on track to meet a June deadline to finalize the mandates.
Its proposed rule, unveiled in December 2022, increased volume mandates and, for the first time, included a pathway for electric vehicle manufacturers to generate lucrative credits from using biofuels to charge them.
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It is unclear whether the final rule included any changes.
Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, oil refiners must blend billions of gallons of biofuels into the U.S.’s fuel mix or buy tradable credits from companies that do.
Under the December proposal, oil refiners would be required to add 20.82 billion gallons of biofuels to their fuel in 2023, 21.87 billion gallons in 2024 and 22.68 billion gallons in 2025.
Those volumes would include more than 15 billion gallons per year of conventional biofuels like corn-based ethanol, with the rest made up by advanced fuels like those derived from switchgrass, animal fats or methane from dairy farms and landfills.
The proposal to include credits for EV makers would recognize the possibility that EVs could be charged using power generated by biofuels like landfill or agricultural methane.
The agency proposal foresaw EV manufacturers, such as Tesla, generating as many as 600 million credits, called e-RINs, in 2024. By 2025, the agency expected that number to grow to 1.2 billion. Under the scheme, one e-RIN would be generated for every 6.5 biofuel-powered kilowatt hours in an EV battery.
