Investigator: EPA failed to meet RFS requirements

OREANDA-NEWS. August 19, 2016. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff may not complete a study on the effects of US biofuels mandates on air quality before the current program ends, according to a federal investigator's report released today.

The agency may need until the end of 2024 to finish a mandatory "anti-backsliding" study associated with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), according to the EPA's response to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG). That would be two years after the last Congressionally-authored minimum blending volume under the program, and at least one year after EPA would need to set future minimum volumes under a new rulemaking.

EPA told the office it lacks the staff and budget to more swiftly complete the study, which was due before 2010. The agency also has not completed reports required every three years on the program's effects on the environment and conservation.

Staff will request funds for the projects in the upcoming budget process, the agency said in its response to the report.

"Without this information, the EPA is impeded in its assessments of environmental impacts of the RFS program and making Congress aware of potential impacts," the OIG said.

RFS requires refiners, importers and other companies adding to the US transportation fuel supply to ensure rising volumes of biofuels are blended into that pool. EPA must each year evaluate minimum volumes set by Congress in 2007 against economic and supply concerns.

Even those minimum volumes have missed deadlines, stoking courtroom battles and frustration for both the oil and biofuels industries. The agency published blending requirements for 2014, 2015 and 2016 last November — final volumes for 2014 were due in late 2013.

EPA told the OIG that the overdue reports to Congress were hampered by limited resources, and that it was not clear the first report was even useful to Congress. The first triennial report cost \\$1.7mn.

But the law made no exceptions for funding in its requirement to produce the reports, OIG said.