Sponsors (4)
Official title: To amend the Clean Air Act to reform the Renewable Fuel Standard, and for other purposes.
Introduced April 28, 2026 by Jodey Cook Arrington · Last progress April 28, 2026
The bill reduces near-term compliance burdens and clarifies RFS procedures while tying mandates to EIA projections and expanding SRE mechanisms — a trade-off that improves short-term predictability for some fuel suppliers but risks lowering biofuel demand certainty and shifting costs onto non‑exempt refiners and consumers.
Refiners, blenders, and fuel suppliers can use 2020–2022 RIN credits for compliance for up to five years after enactment, lowering near-term compliance costs and easing cash-flow pressure on fuel producers.
Small refineries and petitioners gain clearer, objective criteria and administrative timelines for small refinery exemption (SRE) reviews, increasing procedural transparency and predictability of EPA decisions.
Fuel suppliers are protected from a potential new electric fuel-credit (e‑RIN) mandate because the EPA is explicitly barred from imposing e‑RINs, avoiding a new compliance category and related costs or operational changes.
Broadening and streamlining small refinery exemptions (including automatic grants when EPA misses deadlines and DOE index triggers) could reduce overall renewable-fuel obligations, shifting costs to non-exempt refiners and ultimately increasing fuel prices for consumers and taxpayers.
Treating volumes from exempted refineries as non-reallocable concentrates compliance burdens on remaining obligated parties, raising compliance costs for non-exempt refiners and likely increasing consumer fuel prices.
Limiting the use of 2020–2022 RIN credits to 20% of an obligated party’s annual compliance obligation could leave refiners and blenders needing to buy additional RINs in the near term, increasing compliance costs despite the temporary credit extension.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Limits conventional renewable fuel mandates to EIA-projected ethanol-blend use, extends and caps 2020–2022 RIN use, bans e‑RIN mandates, and tightens small-refinery exemption rules.
Amends the Renewable Fuel Standard (Clean Air Act §211(o)) to limit annual volume requirements for conventional (non-advanced) renewable fuels to the EIA’s projected domestic ethanol-blended fuel consumption for each year beginning the first calendar year after enactment; extends and restricts the usable life and annual usage share of certain RIN credits generated in 2020–2022; prohibits the EPA from requiring electric credits ("e‑RINs"); and adds new, more-prescriptive rules and evaluation factors for small refinery exemptions. It also changes statutory wording and procedures governing small-refinery exemption reviews and clarifies treatment of those exemptions under existing rules.