The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) have petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to relieve them from the cellulosic biofuel mandate for 2013.
As the US economy battles supply side constraints for cellolosic biofuel for use in commercial application AFPM believes that companies will be hard pressed to keep up to the requirements of the mandate.
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This is the second year running that the association has filed for a waiver for the EPA mandate.
The environment body had earlier made the use of 6 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel mandatory to meet the requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) published in 2011.
EPA’s own Moderated Transaction System (EMTS), however, revealed that domestic supply of cellulosic biofuel remains inadequate.
No cellulosic biofuel was produced in 2011, while only 20,069 gallons was produced in 2012 as opposed to the EPA-mandated 10.45 million ethanol-equivalent gallons of cellulosic biofuel says EMTS.
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By GlobalDataAdding further to supply constraints the produced cellulosic biofuel was exported to foreign countries leaving little, if any, for domestic consumption.
If the EPA rejects a waiver peitition refiners will face a hidden tax running ino several million dollars for a nonexistent product said AFPM.
AFPM President Charles Drevna remarked that EPA the timeframe for the introduction of cellulosic biofuel into the US market is unrealistic.
"Congress foresaw that the aggressive renewable fuel standards might be unattainable and established several waiver provisions in the Clean Air Act including for inadequate domestic supply.
"If zero production doesn’t meet the definition of inadequate, then it is time for Congress to reexamine the entire RFS and its failure to produce their desired results," said Drevna.
