June 25, 2023. Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas Founder & CEO Johannes Escudero expressed support for the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) latest rulemaking for the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), which includes considerable growth in cellulosic biofuel targets for 2023-2025.
“RNG demand continues to grow under this proposal and EPA is sending a clear signal recognizing RNG as an important part of America’s clean fuel present and future,” RNG Coalition’s Escudero said. “Operational RNG facilities in North America have grown tenfold since 2011, to 293 facilities today, and our industry stands ready to capture methane emissions from organic waste and supply increasing volumes of RNG.”
With the latest RFS rulemaking mandating 840 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel volumes for 2023 (+210 million gallons compared to 2022), 1.09 billion gallons for 2024 (+250 million gallons) and 1.38 billion gallons for 2025 (+290 million gallons), EPA has factored a 25% growth rate for RNG each year under the cellulosic category. This is well above the rate EPA offered in its December proposal and more reflective of RNG Coalition’s objective to capture methane emissions at thousands of waste sites across North America in coming years.
While RNG Coalition welcomes the support these volumes will provide to burgeoning markets for RNG, the agency missed an opportunity to further decarbonize U.S. transport with its decision to delay eRIN implementation. RNG Coalition has significant interest in the proposed rule’s eRIN pathway, which would permit RFS credit generation from electricity when generated from RNG or biogas and used to power light-duty electric vehicles.
“Good public policy would support promoting renewable electricity as part of the nation’s transportation policy,” RNG Coalition CEO Escudero said. “Biofuels play a critical role in electricity generation for EV charging. By not including eRINs now, EPA is foregoing an aspect of the program that could have been an accelerator for methane capture and cleaner air.”
RNG facilities at landfills, dairies, wastewater treatment centers and commercial food waste sites capture methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere and repurpose it in a more circular clean energy economy. RNG is fully fungible with conventional natural gas and is used as a direct substitute in most transport, commercial, industrial and residential natural gas applications.