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NBB says EPA proposal is not what was promised

The National Biodiesel Board is skeptical the EPA’s proposed supplemental rule will ensure that 2020 and future biomass-based diesel volume obligations are fully met.

Paul Winters it the director of public affairs and federal communications with the National Biodiesel Board.

”We understood the mechanism to estimate future refinery exemptions would be a three-year average of the actual exempted volumes that had been granted for 2016, 2017, and 2018,” he says. “What was announced today by the EPA is different from that.”

He tells Brownfield the EPA is proposing to use a three-year average of the volumes they would have exempted if they would have followed the Department of Energy’s recommendations.

Winters says the proposal doesn’t uphold President Trump’s promise to farmers and biodiesel producers.

“Today’s proposal would estimate about half of the demand destruction that has actually occurred,” he says.

The EPA is seeking public comment on alternative methods for projecting exemptions. Winters says the National Biodiesel Board will continue to press for the EPA to use volumes exempted over the past three years as the estimate for 2020 and continue to use a three-year rolling average in the future.

Audio: Paul Winters, National Biodiesel Board