Clean Fuels Intends to Sue EPA Over RFS Rule Delay

Cindy Zimmerman

Clean Fuels Alliance America this week delivered a formal notice of intent to sue the Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to issue timely 2026 Renewable Fuel Standards.

By statute, EPA is required to finalize volumes 14 months before the start of the compliance year; for 2026, that deadline would come at the end of October this year. On June 28, the White House Office of Management and Budget released the Spring 2024 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions, setting out a timeline for EPA to propose the 2026 RFS volumes by March 2025 and finalize the rule by December 2025.

Clean Fuels stated in the letter, “EPA’s failure to timely issue the 2026 RFS volumes compounds another issue: EPA set the volumes for 2023 through 2025 too low….While EPA can and should reconsider and revise its 2024 and 2025 volumes, it should at a minimum set a timely 2026 volume.”

“The biodiesel, renewable diesel, and SAF industry needs EPA to get the program back on track to support our growth,” said Kurt Kovarik, Vice President of Federal Affairs for Clean Fuels Alliance America. “Clean Fuels provided EPA a great deal of data on our growth to support our petition to revise the 2024 and 2025 RFS volumes for biomass-based diesel and advanced biofuels. There isn’t any practical reason that would prevent the agency from meeting the legal deadline for the 2026 RFS rule.”

Biodiesel, biofuels, Clean Fuels Alliance, EPA, renewable diesel, SAF