EPA offers two options to reallocate 770 million waived 2025 RFS RINs after small refinery exemptions
The EPA put two options on the table for reallocating 770 million RINs that got waived through small refinery exemptions under the 2025 Renewable Fuel Standard. Administrator Lee Zeldin confirmed the choice during an October 13 stop in Iowa. For anyone blending or buying renewable fuel, how those 770 million gallons of obligation get redistributed decides where RIN prices go.
A small refinery petitions EPA for relief from its blending obligation. When EPA grants the exemption, that volume does not vanish from the national target. It has to land somewhere, and the usual fight is whether the agency spreads it across the remaining obligated parties or just lets it drop. Two options means EPA is still deciding how much of that burden the bigger refiners and importers absorb. Corn growers want every gallon reallocated. Refiners want the opposite.
Clean Fuels lobbying
Clean Fuels Alliance America spent $350,468 on in-house lobbying in Q3 2026, up $865 from Q2. The targets were year-round E15, renewable fuel requirements, maritime biofuel credits, and small biodiesel producer tax incentives. Combined spend across all its registrants was $400,468, down from $489,603 the prior quarter and $587,578 in Q3 2025. The year-round E15 push is the one that matters at the pump, since a permanent fix would let retailers sell the cheaper blend through summer without a waiver scramble.
Corn center money
The National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center landed a $17 million investment to expand research capacity. That is upstream of anything you sell this quarter, but it signals the corn ethanol lobby is still putting money into proving out the product while policy argues over its share of the barrel.
B100 and biodiesel
Edina rolled out Minnesota's first B100 biodiesel fleet. One fleet, one city, but B100 adoption at the municipal level is the kind of demand that tightens local biodiesel supply before anyone sees it in the spot market. St. Clair will be reimbursed for mutual aid it provided at the Chatham ethanol plant fire, a reminder that plant incidents still pull supply offline without much warning.
Overseas, India dropped sugarcane-based ethanol from its latest procurement tender and cut maize ethanol pricing by Rs 3 a liter, and Oman is piloting B7 in construction gear. Neither affects a US gallon right now.
What to watch
Which of the two reallocation options EPA picks, and how fast. The 770 million RINs are real volume, and RIN prices could firm if EPA pushes the full amount back onto obligated parties. Watch whether year-round E15 gets attached to any year-end package before the summer selling season.