The following is a comment submitted on behalf of The Institute for Energy Research on the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rule Renewable Fuel Standard Program: Standards for 2026 and 2027, Partial Waiver of 2025 Cellulosic Biofuel Volume Requirement, and Other Changes Docket ID No. EPA–HQ–OAR–2024–0505-0002.
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Comment submitted by:
Institute for Energy Research
1155 15th St NW Suite 500
Washington, DC 20005
Kenneth Stein, Policy Director
August 8, 2025
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a flawed program, created in the hope that government planning could overcome basic economic and physical realities. The end of the overoptimistic mandated volumes from Congress in 2022 should have been an opportunity to reassess the overall value and purpose of the RFS. Unfortunately, with this latest proposed rule the Environmental Protection Agency has again failed to recognize the market changes in US oil supply and demand or the limitations to ethanol production and use that have been exposed in the 20 years since the original RFS was created. Not only has EPA failed to address the known deficiencies of the RFS, it seeks to continue increasing volume mandates. The original national security justifications for the RFS have been long since been resolved, not by the production of biofuels, but rather through massively increased domestic production of oil. The proposed rule ignores these market realities, retreating to a simple assumption that the goal of the RFS is just to increase the use of biofuels. This is a misreading of the intent of the program, turning a statute designed for national security into a run-of-the-mill special interest subsidy.
This proposed rule is flawed in its foundational justification, and the RFS program has outlived its usefulness, but this comment focuses on three aspects of the proposed rule: (1) the positive step of removing electricity from the RFS program, (2) the directly counterproductive step of reducing the credit given to imported biofuel and feedstock, which will actually increase the total volume of imports; and (3) the failure to grapple with the reality that the entire RFS has become obsolete under its original justification.
Elimination of eRINS provisions
IER strongly supports the elimination of eRINS and renewable electricity from the RFS program. There is no support in statute for including electricity generation in the RFS and such inclusion is in conflict with the plain language of the statute. Congress made clear in the EISA of 2007 that electricity and electric vehicles were not included in the RFS.
In the EISA of 2007,\ Congress modified the RFS program first authorized through the Energy Policy Act of 2005. As amended, the RFS program requires, for each year, that EPA “ensure that transportation fuel sold or introduced into commerce in the United States … contains at least the applicable volume of renewable fuel … in accordance with subparagraph (B) and … achieves at least a 20 percent reduction in lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions compared to baseline lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions.” 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(2)(A)(i)(emphasis added). Of note:
- “The term ‘transportation fuel’ means fuel for use in motor vehicles, motor vehicle engines, nonroad vehicles, or nonroad engines (except for ocean-going vessels).” 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(1)(L).
- “The term ‘renewable fuel’ means fuel that is produced from renewable biomass and that is used to replace or reduce the quantity of fossil fuel present in a transportation fuel.” 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(1)(L).
- “The term ‘additional renewable fuel’ means fuel that is produced from renewable biomass and that is used to replace or reduce the quantity of fossil fuel present in home heating oil or jet fuel.” 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(1)(A).
Electricity is not a fuel or renewable fuel under these definitions. Past attempts to shoehorn electricity and electric vehicles into this program were directly contrary to statute, and EPA is correct to remove these remaining provisions from the code of federal regulations.
The revisions to imported fuel credits undermine national security justifications for the RFS
This proposed rule actively undermines the national security goals as originally articulated when the RFS was created. The proposed rule, like previous years’ volume mandates, sets volumes at such a high level that domestic production will not be able to fulfill. This means that biofuels and feedstocks must be imported to comply with the RFS blending mandates. But despite this rule effectively requiring imports, the rule also proposes to decrease the compliance value of those imported volumes. This means that the rule actually encourages increased volumes of imports because more imports are required to reach compliance.
This is doubly damaging to the asserted national security goal of reducing imports. Firstly, with domestic oil production vastly higher than when the RFS was enacted, imports of biofuels are displacing domestically produced and refined petroleum-based fuels. The United States is a net exporter of both crude oil and refined products, we produce more than we use. Thus every imported gallon of biofuel, in a national security sense, is unneeded. The only factor driving biofuel imports is the RFS itself, requiring higher volumes of biofuel blending than domestic production can meet. Secondly, reducing the compliance value of imported biofuel does not magically change the economic realities of domestic biofuel production. If there is not enough biofuel volume to meet the RFS mandate, then imports must happen. Reducing the compliance value will only increase the total volume of imports because imports will need to be sufficient to not just meet the physical excess volume amounts, but will need to be even greater to reach the mandated compliance levels.
In its proposed rule, EPA almost acknowledges that the RFS promotes importation of biofuels to meet the mandate. It correctly identifies the problem. But instead of recognizing that this means that the RFS volume mandates are so high that they are undermining national security, and therefore should be decreased rather than increased, it proposes this compliance devaluation which will serve to actually increase the total volume of imports.
The RFS itself now undermines national security and its impact should be reduced not increased
The primary justification for the RFS is and was national security; to move the United States towards greater energy independence and security in the words of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act which expanded the RFS mandates. But the national security factors around liquid transportation fuels have drastically changed in the 20 years since the first version of the RFS was created, most significantly by the massive increase in domestic oil production.
The main justification for the RFS in 2005 was dependence on foreign oil. However, that dependence has been eliminated by domestic production increase of 149% since 2005. US oil imports peaked in 2005, with net imports making up 60.3% of consumption. OPEC, the great national security concern, supplied almost half of those imports. But in the 20 years since that situation has completely reversed, with the US having been a net oil exporter since 2020.
Of the oil the US still imports, 60% or more comes from just Canada and Mexico, and that oil is needed for our domestic refining industry and much of it is refined and then exported as finished product. The latest EIA import statistics make this clear:
May 2024 import percentages:
- Persian Gulf 8.2%
- OPEC: 13.6%
- Canada: 53.5%
- Mexico: 6.5%
2024 full year import percentages:
- Persian Gulf: 8.5%
- OPEC: 14.9%
- Canada: 55.2%
- Mexico: 7.4%
These statistics just emphasize that the original justification for the RFS is obsolete. The US is no longer dependent on foreign oil. There is no longer an urgent national security imperative for replacing foreign-sourced oil in our transportation system, because increased American production has already displaced those foreign sources.
The RFS actually undermines national security
At several points in the proposed rulemaking, EPA asserts the rote phrase that the proposed increased volume mandates will increase energy independence and security. But these assertions lack empirical support. If RFS mandated volumes are displacing domestically produced oil, then there is precisely zero national security benefit. And if the RFS is requiring imports of biofuels to meet volume mandates, as EPA implicitly acknowledges it its attempt to devalue the compliance credit of renewable fuel imports, then the RFS is actually actively harming national security. Replacing domestic oil production with foreign biofuels contradicts the entire premise that the RFS is based on.
Rather than continue to automatically ratchet RFS mandates higher, EPA should reassess the premises on which the program is based. Increased domestic oil production fundamentally changes how RFS factors should be considered. Displacing domestic oil production in favor of biofuels does not improve national security.
EPA relies on the vague phrase “other factors” in section 211(o)(2)(B)(ii)(VI) of the Clean Air Act. But continuation of subsidies, cronyism, and special interest handouts is not a legitimate “other factor.” This proposed rule should be revised to actually prioritize national security in the way that Congress originally intended.
