Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Renewable Fuel Standard ...

gasoline. The Act is unclear on whether other fuels that meet the definition of renewable
fuel, but are not used in gasoline, could also be used to demonstrate compliance towards
the aggregate national use of renewable fuels.
EPA interprets the Act as allowing regulated parties to demonstrate compliance
based on any fuel that meets the statutory definition for renewable fuel, whether it is
directly blended with gasoline or not. This would include neat alternative fuels such as
ethanol, methanol, and natural gas that meet the definition of renewable fuel. This is
appropriate for several reasons. First, it promotes the use of all renewable fuels, which
will further the achievement of the purposes behind this provision. Congress did not
intend to limit the program to only gasoline components, as evidenced by the provision
for bio-diesel, and the broad definition of renewable fuel evidences an intention to
address more renewable fuels than those used with gasoline. Second, in practice EPA
expects that the overwhelming volume of renewable fuel used to demonstrate compliance
with the renewable fuel obligation would still be ethanol blended with gasoline. Whether
one counts or does not count these additional renewable fuels would not in practice
change whether the total national goal for renewable fuel use was met, given the size of
the goal specified in the Act and the form in which the total is expressed. Finally, as
discussed later, EPA’s compliance program is based on assigning volumes at the point of
production, and not at the point of blending into motor vehicle fuel. This interpretation
would avoid the need to track renewable fuels downstream to ensure they are blended
with gasoline and not used in their neat form; the gasoline that is used in motor vehicles
is reduced by the presence of renewable fuels in the gasoline pool whether they are
blended with gasoline or not EPA believes its proposal is consistent with the intent of
Congress and is a reasonable interpretation of the Act.
We are therefore proposing that in addition to any renewable fuels that are
actually blended into gasoline and are designated for use in a highway vehicle, we would
also count any renewable fuels falling into the following categories as being valid for
RFS compliance purposes:
1. Any renewable fuels used in nonroad applications
2. Any renewable fuels used in their neat (unblended) form in onroad and
nonroad applications; and
3. Any renewable fuel used in a motor vehicle that does not normally run on
gasoline. For instance, biogas used in a CNG vehicle, or biogenic methanol
used in a dedicated methanol vehicle.
The Agency solicits comment on this approach.
Under the Act, renewable fuel includes “cellulosic biomass ethanol” and “waste
derived ethanol”, each of which is defined separately. Ethanol can be cellulosic biomass
ethanol in one of two ways, as described below.
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