U.S. EPA Eliminates Proposed Electric Vehicle Volumes from Biofuel Blending Rule

US: The Biden administration will drop a plan to include the electric vehicle industry in the U.S. biofuel blending programme and withdraw trade credits that could have been worth billions of dollars.

Because of worries that the scheme would result in legal action, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was thinking of postponing the EV programme. The White House will evaluate the final rule.

By abandoning the proposal, the administration moves further away from the goal that businesses like Tesla Inc. have advocated for: permitting electric vehicles to earn approximately 2 billion credits under the U.S., RFS in the following two years. The EV programme would have helped President Joe Biden achieve his objective of electrifying the automotive sector to combat climate change.

The EPA, which oversees the RFS, stated that it was taking comments into consideration for a final rulemaking on mandates for biofuel blending in the years 2023, 2024, and 2025 and that it was unable to make any more comments. The nation's dependency on imported oil while expanding the renewable fuels industry through the renewable fuel standard (RFS) programme. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 first authorised this programme, then the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 expanded it.

In what would have been a significant revision to a frequently contentious rule that requires oil refiners to blend billions of gallons of biofuel into the country's gasoline mix or purchase tradeable credits from those that do, the EPA suggested the inclusion of EVs in the RFS last year.

The majority of credits produced under the RFS are used to refuel vehicles with liquid fuels like Ethanol made from Corn. The programme would change if credits were added for electricity produced from renewable gas and then used to charge EVs. According to the EPA's recommendation from the previous year, EV producers may produce up to 600 million credits in 2024 and 1.2 billion credits by 2025. These projections were incorporated into the proposal's cellulosic credit pool.

The EPA will take those estimated amounts out of the final rule it plans to publish by June 14. According to the proposal, the EV plan would approximately double the credits generated from 720 million this year to 2.13 billion by 2025, marking the greatest rise in the cellulosic credit pool in the RFS program's history. Those involved in the renewable natural gas and electric car industries believed that, despite the delay, an EV programme may still be approved before the end of the year.