EPA retroactively lowers biofuel requirement for 2013
By Timothy Cama

April 22, 2014, 04:15 pm

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday retroactively lowered the volume of cellulosic biofuel that refiners must blend into traditional fuels, aligning the 2013 mandated volume to the actual amount of fuels produced.
EPA’s original mandate for 2013 was based on a projection that producers would make 6 million ethanol-equivalent gallons of cellulosic biofuel, but just over 800,000 gallons of the fuels were actually produced that year, the agency said. Tuesday’s action sets the cellulosic biofuel blend level at 0.0005 percent, reflecting the amount of fuel produced.

The year is over, but EPA’s revision means that refiners will not have to use credits or pay penalties for not reaching the target.

EPA said its 6 million-gallon target was a projection of the amount of fuel that would be made. But shortly after issuing the mandate in August 2013, Kior Inc., one of the two cellulosic biofuel producers in the United States, sharply reduced its output.

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More:
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire...rement-for-2013

I wonder if the decrease in production is related to this story:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-03-18...le-default.html

or this one:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/1676202-...ulosic-biofuels