On December 21, 2012, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published its semiannual regulatory agenda outlining its rulemaking priorities for 2013. The agenda includes a timetable for finalizing federal rules to curb greenhouse gas emissions from both motor vehicles and stationary sources, as well as new requirements for the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide.

U.S. EPA recently completed an agenda item related to the Renewable Fuel Standards program, which requires that four categories of renewable fuel be

blended into transportation fuels in increasing amounts each year, reaching 36 billion gallons by 2022. Each renewable fuel category must emit lower levels of greenhouse gases than the petroleum fuel it replaces. U.S. EPA finalized the 2013 volume requirement for only one renewable fuel—biomass-based diesel—before the end of 2012, but proposed 2013 volume requirements for the other three categories—cellulosic biofuel, advanced biofuels, and total renewable fuels—on January 31, 2013. The proposal would require that 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuels, including 14 million ethanol-equivalent gallons of cellulosic biofuel, be blended into the nation's transportation fuel supply in 2013. This represents a 60 percent increase in the cellulosic biofuel requirement above last year's level, despite a recent federal appeals court decision vacating the 2012 cellulosic biofuel requirement, because U.S. EPA had used an unreasonably optimistic methodology to project the available volume.

With respect to stationary emission sources, the regulatory agenda indicates that U.S. EPA plans to finalize the first-ever greenhouse gas "new source performance standards" for electric generating units in March 2013. An April 2012 proposed rule asked for public comment on a number of issues, including a range of greenhouse gas emission standards. The proposed standards would establish a limit on carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour for all fossil fuel-fired electric generating units with a base load rating of more than 250 million Btu/hour heat input (73 megawatts) that commenced construction after April 13, 2012.

According to the regulatory agenda, U.S. EPA also intends to issue a final rule in April 2013 to conditionally exclude certain carbon capture and storage activities from hazardous waste management requirements under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"). In August 2011, U.S. EPA proposed to exclude supercritical carbon dioxide streams from such requirements, but only when injected into Class VI injection wells regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act's Underground Injection Control ("UIC") program under certain conditions. According to U.S. EPA, regulation under UIC rather than RCRA should facilitate the development of carbon capture and storage technology, but industry has expressed concern that the Class VI requirements are too stringent and may deter the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide

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