RFA Backs EPA Plan to Restore 770 Million Waived RINs Under RFS

The Renewable Fuels Association is urging the EPA to reallocate all 770 million renewable identification numbers waived beyond the levels anticipated in the agency's earlier rule. The figure sits at the center of a proposal to restore renewable fuel volumes lost through small refinery exemptions under the Renewable Fuel Standard, and it drew a full-throated endorsement from the biofuels industry at a hearing Wednesday.

RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper testified at the hearing and pressed the agency to go further than partial repair. He said the agency should reallocate the entire 770 million additional RINs, according to remarks reported by the Iowa Agribusiness Radio Network.

Cooper says full reallocation is needed to prevent exempted gallons from reducing demand for newly produced renewable fuels in 2026 and 2027. That two-year window is the practical stakes of the proposal. If the waived volumes are restored in full, refiners that received exemptions would still have to account for the displaced volume, and demand for fresh renewable fuel would hold. If the agency reallocates only part of the 770 million RINs, the gap carries into the compliance years ahead.

What does the dispute over exemptions change?

Cooper also criticized EPA's process for granting small refinery exemptions. The program, he argued, was intended to provide temporary relief for refiners facing economic hardship, not to become a permanent entitlement.

That framing cuts to the design of the exemption mechanism. A hardship provision that relieves a refiner for a season and one that shields a refinery year after year produce very different outcomes for the renewable fuel market. RFA's position is that the second pattern has taken hold, and that EPA's process has allowed it.

The group lays out the downstream consequences in direct terms. The exemptions, RFA says:

• undermine renewable fuel demand;
• discourage investment by farmers, biofuel producers, and fuel retailers;
• erode the market benefits the Renewable Fuel Standard was built to deliver.

The investment argument carries particular weight for the feedstock and production side of the stream. Farmers weighing commitments to corn and biofuel producers weighing capacity decisions both price policy risk into their plans. An exemption regime that removes gallons from the compliance market weakens the demand signal those investors rely on, RFA argues, and restoring the waived volumes would help protect the Renewable Fuel Standard's market benefits.

What happens next?

The hearing on Wednesday marked the public-comment phase of the EPA proposal. The agency must now decide how many of the 770 million waived RINs to reallocate into the 2026 and 2027 volumes, and that decision will set the compliance demand facing refiners in those years.

For the renewable fuels sector, the milestone to track is the final rule. Full reallocation preserves demand for newly produced renewable fuel across the two compliance years. Anything less leaves exempted gallons outside the program and tests whether the small refinery exemption remains, in Cooper's words, a temporary relief mechanism or settles into a permanent entitlement.

The EPA's record on that question now determines the demand base for biofuel producers, fuel retailers, and farmers through 2027.