Sponsors (4)
The bill provides short-term compliance relief and clearer procedures for fuel suppliers while capping future non-advanced fuel mandates and expanding small-refinery exemptions — trading reduced near-term regulatory pressure and greater transparency for risks of lower biofuel demand, shifted compliance costs, and potential higher fuel prices for consumers.
Refiners and blenders can use 2020–2022 RIN credits for compliance for up to five years after enactment, easing near-term compliance costs and lowering immediate financial pressure on obligated parties.
Ties non-advanced renewable fuel volume limits to EIA projected ethanol-blended consumption, reducing the risk that statutory mandates exceed actual market demand and helping avoid forced over-blending.
Adds clear, objective factors and administrative timelines for evaluating small refinery exemption (SRE) petitions, increasing procedural transparency and predictability for petitioners and regulators.
Broadening and streamlining small refinery exemptions and treating exempted volumes as non-reallocable will reduce overall renewable-fuel obligations, concentrate compliance burdens on non-exempt refiners, shift costs to other refiners and consumers, and could raise fuel prices.
Limiting the use of 2020–2022 RINs to 20% of annual compliance may leave obligated parties needing to buy additional RINs in the near term, increasing compliance costs for refiners and potentially raising consumer fuel prices.
Capping non-advanced renewable fuel volumes to EIA projections could constrain biofuel demand and reduce market certainty for ethanol producers and related rural economies.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Caps conventional renewable-fuel obligations to EIA-projected ethanol-blend consumption, extends 2020–2022 RIN usability, bars mandatory e‑RINs, and tightens small-refinery exemption rules.
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
Limits annual required volumes for conventional (non-advanced) renewable fuel to at most the domestic ethanol-blended fuel consumption projected by the EIA Annual Energy Outlook for each applicable year, starting the first calendar year after enactment. Extends the usable compliance life of RINs generated in 2020–2022 (with a cap on how much of annual compliance they can satisfy), bars the Administrator from requiring electric credits (e‑RINs), and changes how small refinery exemptions are evaluated and treated under the Clean Air Act.