The EPA said it is setting RVOs for ethanol at the staturory volume of 15 billion gallons for 2022. For 2021, it has set the RVO at 13.79 billion gallons, which is higher than its previous proposal of 13.32 billion gallons in December 2021. 

The EPA said its final rule for the 2021 RVO was based on the actual volume of ethanol consumed in 2021. As for 2020, the EPA has set the RVO for ethanol at 12.5 billion gallons.

Additionally, the EPA said it had established a 250 million gallon supplemental obligation for the 2022 RVOs and will add another 250 million gallons to 2023 RVOs to address the remand of the 2014-2016 annual rule by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in Americans for Clean Energy v. EPA.

In a separate announcement, the EPA said it is denying 69 small refinery exemption (SRE) petitions for "one or more of the compliance years between 2016 and 2021."

"The Tenth Circuit held that SREs may only be granted when a small refinery’s hardship is caused by compliance with the RFS program. After reviewing more than a decade of RFS market data, public comments on a proposal EPA issued in December 2021, and confidential information submitted by petitioners, EPA concluded that none of the 69 SRE petitions demonstrated disproportionate economic hardship caused by compliance with the RFS program," the EPA said.