The Biden administration has signaled climate issues as one of its priorities.
According to a report at The Wall Street Journal, new leadership at the EPA will be in charge of determining blending obligations for 2021, which the previous administration didn’t set by the Nov. 30 deadline.
The new volume obligations likely won’t emerge until the second half of the year. Corey Lavinsky, director of global biofuels at S&P Global Platts, notes that Biden’s EPA is likely to set strong mandates for 2021 and 2022 and to enforce them.
While that will be welcome news for the ethanol industry and corn farmers, it has potential to cause more pain for refiners — particularly the smaller ones already hurt by the collapse in volume and margins due to the pandemic.
