The Trump administration ordered oil companies to blend more renewable fuel into gasoline and diesel next year -- but it could be the last increase for years to come, as the government starts to make sweeping changes to the U.S. biofuel mandate.
According to a report at The Nebraska Farmer, with the final 2019 quotas released Friday, the Environmental Protection Agency is kicking off a head-to-toe overhaul of the Renewable Fuel Standard and setting off a fresh battle between the oil industry and agricultural interests over U.S. gasoline market share that will play out against an increasingly political backdrop.
The EPA on Friday said it’s requiring refiners to blend 19.92 billion gallons of biofuel next year, a 3.3% increase over the current requirements and largely in line with quotas the agency proposed in June. Some 15 billion gallons of the total can come from conventional sources such as corn-based ethanol. At least 4.92 billion gallons must be be fulfilled by advanced biofuel, including 418 million gallons of cellulosic renewable fuel, such as ethanol made from switchgrass.
Read the full report here.
