SABR welcomes US EPA’s final RVOs for 2026-’27, renewable diesel’s corrected equivalence value

The Sustainable Advanced Biofuel Refiners Coalition, a national biodiesel trade association made up of over 70 organizational members throughout the biodiesel value chain, welcomed U.S. EPA’s final rule March 27 on renewable volume obligations (RVOs) for 2026 and 2027 under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard program. 

“SABR applauds EPA for this final rule, including its decision to correct inflated equivalence values (EVs),” said SABR CEO Joe Jobe. “We also applaud EPA for increasing the RVOs and partially reallocating small-refinery exemptions (SREs).” 

SABR has been urging EPA to correct inflated EVs assigned to renewable diesel, sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and their byproducts for several years (see this 2023 SABR article).

In the agency’s 2023 proposed “Set” rule, EPA acknowledged that renewable diesel EVs were inflated, and that this is unfair to biodiesel.

As a result, EPA proposed correcting them, but renewable diesel advocates argued against this, and the agency did not include a correction in the 2023 final rule. 

At recent average D4 renewable identification number (RIN) credit prices of $1.60, the inflated EV for renewable diesel results in an advantage of 32 cents per gallon over biodiesel.

It is one of the primary reasons that renewable diesel has been cannibalizing biodiesel over the past few years, according to SABR. 

“We are very glad that EPA chose to correct the inflated values in this rulemaking,” Jobe said. “We are also glad to see that EPA addressed the inflated values for SAF and naphtha as well.” 

The RFS was instrumental in the development of the U.S. biodiesel industry—America’s first advanced biofuel.  

“In recent years, arbitrarily low RVOs and flawed policy signals have improperly disadvantaged biodiesel, the lowest-cost, lowest-carbon, and highest-performing fuel in its heavy-duty category,” SABR stated. “Today’s announcement takes some critically important steps toward addressing those flaws and getting the RFS back on track.” 

Several soybean organizations joined SABR in their comments to correct the inflated equivalence values.

“SABR has been the leading voice to fix the inflated equivalence values,” said Ron Kindred, a soybean farmer from Atlanta, Illinois, who represents the Illinois Soybean Association on the SABR board. “This correction will help reduce some of the flawed policy disadvantages placed on biodiesel, and it will help soybean farmers by effectively adding more gallons to the program. We appreciate the positive changes EPA implemented with this rule. The increases in the biomass-based diesel category indicate that EPA is listening to stakeholders and working to provide clarity to markets.”