The biodiesel industry is pleased with EPA’s decision to raise the mandated biodiesel volumes under the Renewable Fuel Standard. Under the new rules biomass-based diesel volumes would grow to 1.9 billion gallons in 2016 and 2 billion gallons in 2017. Anne Steckel, Vice President of Federal Affairs with the National Biodiesel Board says the new standards reflect modest but meaningful growth.

She says the good news is having the RFS is place will provide certainty for investors and go a long ways toward getting the U.S. biodiesel industry growing again.

Steckel says however, the National Biodiesel Board initially requested more aggressive growth of 2.7 billion gallons by 2017 and so they still have work to do.

Under the RFS volumes proposed, clean-burning biodiesel will displace billions of gallons of petroleum diesel in the coming years. According to the EPA, biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 57 to 86 percent compared with petroleum diesel.