WASHINGTON — On Friday, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sent its final rule establishing renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for 2014-2016 to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). OMB review and approval is generally the last step in the regulatory process before a regulation is published—and the final regulation is anticipated within the month.

In May of this year, the EPA unveiled its proposed rule for renewable fuel volumes for 2014, 2015 and 2016. The proposed numbers, which are below, are lower than the numbers that Congress called for when it enacted the most recent revisions to the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). In this regard, EPA is acknowledging that the statutory targets are not feasible, and thus the EPA is exercising its waiver authority to lower those numbers to a more realistic level.

In June, NACS testified before the EPA on its proposed rule, and supplemented that testimony with detailed comments in July. In its comments, NACS stated that it generally supports the EPA proposed rule, noting that the proposal “appropriately recognizes that the RFS has the potential to cause substantial problems in the retail fuels market if left unchanged.” NACS commented that the “EPA’s Proposal wisely takes advantage of its statutory authority to avoid the blend wall and associated economic harm” by invoking its waiver authority to lower annual volume obligations to bring the 2014, 2015, and 2016 RVOs in line with what it projects the market could reasonably absorb. Although NACS supported EPA’s invocation of its “inadequate supply” waiver authority, NACS also urged EPA to invoke its “economic harm” authority to lower the RVOs.

NACS—together with the Society of Independent Gasoline Marketers of America, the Petroleum Marketers Association of America and the National Association of Truck Stop Operators—also submitted a separate comment letter to the EPA urging it to “reject efforts by certain stakeholders to revise the RFS regulations in a manner that would make blenders—rather than refiners and importers—‘obligated parties.’” Such a change, if enacted, would subject blenders to obligations they would not necessarily be capable of satisfying. This would “disrupt the renewable fuels market and increase EPA’s burdens in implementing the RFS.”

All volumes are ethanol-equivalent, except for biomass-based diesel, which is actual.

The contents and text of the final rule will not publicly available until it is approved by OMB and published in the Federal Register. EPA is under a court-ordered deadline to finalize the rule before November 30.