Last week, a professor from Purdue University, Wallace Tyner, published an article concluding that EPA should reduce the overall and advanced RVOs under the RFS in years 2014-2016 to make the policy "workable." As we have reported, earlier this month, EPA released its final rule setting the 2013 RFS, in which the Agency included language indicating that it will likely reduce the overall and advanced RVOs for 2014 in that upcoming rulemaking. Tyner's article, which can be found online, illustrates that it is not possible to meet the mandated RFS RVOs in 2014-2016 due to constraints imposed by the impending "blend wall." Based on this, Tyner concludes that EPA must reduce both the overall and advanced RVOs for those years to continue to make the RFS a "workable" policy.
This article is significant for several reasons. Purdue is considered a leading pro-biofuels academic voice on biofuels policy and the RFS. In addition, as Tyner points out in the article, the recommended reductions would represent a marked shift in the way EPA implements the RFS. To date, while EPA annually has reduced the cellulosic RVOs, it has maintained the levels for the overall and advanced RVOs contained in the RFS law, allowing those gallons to make up for the reduced cellulosic gallons. Reducing the overall and advanced gallons in future years would represent that those gallons are no longer expected to be able to make up the shortfall in cellulosic biofuels, due in part to restraints caused by the impending "blend wall."