EPA确认将2025年小型炼厂豁免量100%重新分摊至2026-2027年生物燃料掺混义务，安抚农户但加重大型炼厂负担

The Trump administration said it will make up for lost biofuels demand after the biggest breaks from blending mandates for refiners in nearly a decade, providing a boost for American farmers.

The Environmental Protection Agency will propose to make oil refiners blend more biofuels through next year to make up for recent exemptions from mandates compelling the use of corn and soy-based fuels, the agency said in a statement to Bloomberg. The proposal is to reallocate 100% of the difference between actual and exempted volumes for 2025 small refinery exemptions into the 2026 and 2027 obligations.

The decision reaffirms the EPA’s plan announced in August, when it granted smaller oil refineries the biggest amount of exemptions from mandates requiring them to blend biofuels into gasoline and diesel since 2017. In a nod to farmers, it also said it would essentially force refiners that didn’t receive breaks to pay for those that did in a process called reallocation, which has been a sore point for the oil industry.

“EPA is keeping our promise to open new markets for farmers,” the agency said in the statement. This is to “ensure they have a reliable and durable market to sell their crops.”

Read More: Refiners Granted Highest Level of Biofuel Waivers Since 2017

The approach underscores the difficult balancing act for Trump between the oil and agriculture industries, two important constituencies with competing demands on biofuel policy. The result is a compromise that gives refiners billions of dollars worth of breaks while softening the blow to producers of ethanol and biodiesel. Oil companies with larger refineries, however, are left with a heavier burden.

The Renewable Fuel Standard program, which was created by Congress two decades ago to bolster domestic demand and support rural communities, requires refiners to blend a certain amount of biofuels into gasoline and diesel.

Many companies, rather than blending biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel themselves, buy tradeable credits — so-called renewable identification numbers, or RINs — from those that do. Those credits have spiked in price this year after the Trump administration set record-high blend quotas and as war in the Middle East strained global fuel supplies.

Some small and mid-sized refiners have argued that they need breaks from these mandates to keep certain refineries profitable. But others have said that some companies make a lot of money off of those exemptions.

Meanwhile, farmers, who are struggling with war-driven soaring prices for inputs like fertilizer and diesel and stagnating demand for their crops, say unexpected breaks threaten to curb demand for their products even more.