Reprinted from SWANA Alert:
On Tuesday, August 1, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be holding a public hearing in Washington, DC on the proposed rule, ‘‘Renewable Fuel Standard Program: Standards for 2018 and Biomass-Based Diesel Volume for 2019.’’ In keeping with SWANA’s previous advocacy efforts in regards to the renewable fuel standard (RFS) program, we intend to submit a short written statement to be introduced into the hearing record.
The RFS program is a national policy that requires a certain volume of renewable fuel to replace or reduce the quantity of petroleum-based transportation fuel, heating oil or jet fuel. These amounts are set by EPA each year and the proposed rule will set those levels for 2018. One of the four fuel category amounts that will be set by the RFS is cellulosic biofuels, which includes compressed and liquefied renewable natural gas (RNG) produced from landfill biogas.
As a member of the SWANA Core Advocacy Group, we are notifying you that SWANA intends to submit comments to EPA on the RFS program as part of the August 1st hearing, and in post-hearing comments that EPA will be accepting through August 31st as necessary. These comments will support the testimony of other solid waste industry leaders and ask the EPA set the 2018 RVO standard for cellulosic biofuel at a level that takes into account increased generation of fuel from both existing registered projects and from new projects that will begin generating fuel in 2018. By setting the levels based upon actual current and future capacity instead of on historical data and trends, EPA will ensure that the levels set actually spur demand consistent with increased production. A failure to set the levels high enough would result in a lack of appropriate demand for these fuels, which would undercut the purpose of the RFS program
By setting the levels based upon actual current and future capacity instead of on historical data and trends, EPA will ensure that the levels set actually spur demand consistent with increased production. A failure to set the levels high enough would result in a lack of appropriate demand for these fuels, which would undercut the purpose of the RFS program.
If you or the Chapter or Technical Division members have any questions or concerns about these comments, or if you would like to discuss them further, please contact David Biderman at SWANA.
