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

C. What Gasoline Is Used to Calculate the Renewable Fuel Obligation
and Who Is Required To Meet the Obligation?
1. What Gasoline Is Used To Calculate The Volume Of Renewable Fuel
Required To Meet A Party’s Obligation?
The Act requires EPA to promulgate regulations designed to ensure that “gasoline
sold or introduced into commerce in the United States (except in noncontiguous states or
territories)” contains on an annual average basis, the applicable aggregate volumes of
renewable fuels as prescribed in the Act. 20 To implement this provision, we are
proposing that the volume of gasoline used to determined the renewable fuel obligation
include all finished gasoline, RFG and conventional, produced or imported for use in the
contiguous United States during the annual averaging period. We are also proposing to
include in the volume of gasoline used to determine the renewable fuel obligation all
unfinished gasoline that becomes finished gasoline upon the addition of oxygenate
blended downstream from the refinery or importer. This would include both unfinished
reformulated gasoline, called “reformulated gasoline blendstock for oxygenate blending,”
or “RBOB,” and unfinished conventional gasoline (e.g. sub-octane conventional
gasoline), called “CBOB.”
Under the proposed rule, the volume of any other unfinished gasoline or
blendstock, such as butane, would not be included in the volume used to determine the
renewable fuel obligation, except where the blendstock is combined with other
blendstock or finished gasoline to produce finished gasoline. Where a blendstock is
blended with other blendstock to produce finished gasoline, RBOB, or CBOB, the total
volume of the gasoline blend would be included in the volume used to determine the
renewable fuels obligation for the blender. Where a blendstock is added to finished
gasoline, only the volume of the blendstock would be included, since the finished
gasoline would have been included in the compliance determinations of the refiner or
importer of the gasoline. 21 Gasoline produced or imported for use in a noncontiguous
state or U.S. territory 22 would not be included in the volume used to determine the
renewable fuels obligation (unless the noncontiguous state or territory has opted-in to the
RFS program), nor would gasoline, RBOB or CBOB exported for use outside the United
States.
20 CAA Section 211(o)(2)(A)(i), as added by Section 1501(a) of the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
21 “Gasoline treated as blendstock,” or “GTAB,” would be treated as any other blendstock with regard to
the RFS rule; i.e., where the GTAB is blended with other blendstock to produce gasoline, the total volume
of the gasoline blend, including the GTAB, would be included in the volume gasoline used to determine the
renewable fuel obligation for the blender. Where the GTAB is blended with finished gasoline, only the
GTAB volume would be included.
22 The noncontiguous states are Alaska and Hawaii. The territories are the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas.
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