June 13, 2025 

Statement by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) President Steve Ellis on today’s Environmental Protection Agency announcement of 2026 and 2027 proposed biofuel mandates under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS): 

It’s fittingly Friday the 13th. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced proposed U.S. biofuel mandates for 2026 and 2027, which would require a record level of corn- and soybean-based biofuels to be blended with U.S. fuel. The proposal would increase food and fuel costs at a time when Americans are already facing higher prices.

Officially known as Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs), the government’s proposed biofuel mandates would increase the total volume “renewable fuel” refiners are forced to blend from 22.33 billion gallons in 2025 to 24.02 billion gallons in 2026 and 24.46 billion gallon in 2027. Notably, the proposal would require more than double the volume of biomass-based diesel actually produced in the U.S. in 2025, increasing to 7.12 billion gallons in 2026 and 7.5 billion gallons in 2027. Corn ethanol fuel would receive a 15-billion-gallon government mandate in each year, the maximum allowed by Congress. 

Today’s announcement also predicts, just as TCS has repeatedly warned, that separate ethanol and biodiesel subsidies will rise from the dead this year. The Clean Fuel Production Credit (45Z), created in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, is estimated to subsidize corn ethanol by $0.06/gallon and soy biodiesel by $0.39/gallon despite bipartisan support to end the tax breaks in 2011 and 2024, respectively. Current FY2025 budget reconciliation proposals in Congress would extend and expand the 45Z tax credit, costing taxpayers $45 billion over the next decade, including an estimated $8.5 billion in FY2031 alone.

The overall biofuel mandate, known as the Renewable Fuel Standard, was enacted in 2005 as a way to increase U.S. energy security and spur production of non-food-based advanced biofuels.

EPA’s dismal projection today of advanced cellulosic biofuel production is a stark reminder of how the RFS has failed both consumers and taxpayers. Cellulosic biofuels, originally aimed to be produced from perennial grasses and corn stalks, are estimated to reach just 6% of the advanced biofuel mandate.

Between wasteful tax breaks and a duplicative government mandate, Congress and the Administration must roll back policies that burden taxpayers and consumers, instead of pushing the pedal and making matters worse.  

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EPA’s proposal can be found here – https://www.epa.gov/renewable-fuel-standard-program/proposed-renewable-fuel-standards-2026-and-2027  

For more information, see TCS’s fact sheet on the Renewable Fuel Standard – https://www.taxpayer.net/energy-natural-resources/renewable-fuel-standard-rfs-fact-sheet/