By Stephanie Kelly
NEW YORK (Reuters) -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to send biofuel blending mandates for 2020, 2021 and 2022 to the White House for final review by early next week, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
The oil and biofuel industries, which have in the past been at odds over the requirements, have eagerly awaited for the EPA to finalize the mandates. EPA’s action comes as the United States faces high gas prices and as companies recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
The EPA declined to comment for this article.
The EPA, which administers the policy, released a proposed rule in December. It is unclear whether the mandates sent next week will be the same as the proposal from December.
In that rule, the EPA would retroactively set total renewable fuel volumes at 17.13 billion gallons for 2020. That was down from a previously finalized rule for the year of 20.09 billion gallons, set before the coronavirus hit.
It set volumes at 18.52 billion gallons for 2021 and 20.77 billion gallons for 2022.
Both the 2020 and 2021 figures mark a reduction from 2019, when the EPA had required refiners to blend 19.92 billion gallons of biofuels in the nation’s fuel mix, but the 2022 proposal marks an increase.
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; editing by Diane Craft)
