Methodology

Measure

Gross D4 (biomass-based diesel) RIN generation from EPA's EMTS public data: the monthly RIN-generation CSV, RIN_QUANTITY summed by production month, filtered to FUEL_CODE D4 and sliced by RIN_YEAR, so each vintage's RINs are tracked against that year's standard.

The benchmark is the D4 applicable volume for the tracked vintage year in EPA's final rule for 2026 and 2027 — 9.07B RINs for 2026, 9.20B for 2027 — RIN-denominated, not physical gallons; no gallon-equivalence factor applies. Straight-line pace is the applicable volume divided by 12 (≈756M RINs/mo for 2026, ≈767M for 2027). EPA sets no monthly obligation: every pace figure is an analytical benchmark.

Not measured

Issuance, not net supply — exports, invalid RINs, and retirements are not netted out. Not a market balance, not a compliance forecast, not a price signal. No RIN or LCFS prices appear, and nothing here is investment advice.

Revisions

EPA republishes history (remedial actions, resubmissions), so past months can move. The full series is recomputed at every refresh; figures are EPA-reported as of the pull date shown in the app's status line.

Volume derivations

The RFS standards nest rather than stack: a D4 RIN can also satisfy the advanced-biofuel and total-renewable-fuel obligations, and D3/D5 nest within advanced, which nests within total. The final rule sets no standalone D6 volume — the non-advanced residual (total minus advanced) is arithmetic, not a rule.

Weekly EIA series

Three weekly series give supply context: oxygenate-plant fuel ethanol production (thousand b/d), fuel ethanol ending stocks (thousand barrels), and refiner/blender net input of fuel ethanol (thousand b/d), pulled from the EIA API v2. All three come from the Weekly Petroleum Status Report, released Wednesdays 10:30 ET with a ~5-day lag. Ethanol is D6 supply context only: no weekly biomass-based diesel series exists — biodiesel and renewable diesel are reported monthly.

Monthly BBD supply

Two production series from EIA's Petroleum Supply Monthly supply-and-disposition data (petroleum/sum/snd): biofuels-plant net production of biodiesel (M_EPOORDB_YNP_NUS_MBBL) and of renewable diesel (M_EPOORDO_YNP_NUS_MBBL). Native units are thousand barrels per month (MBBL); gallons are derived as MBBL × 1,000 × 42. These are physical volumes — not RIN counts — and no gallon-to-RIN equivalence factor is applied or implied; they are not comparable to the issuance figures elsewhere in the app.

Capacity comes from EIA's Monthly Biofuels Capacity and Feedstocks Update (petroleum/pnp/capbio), in million gallons per year of annualized nameplate: biodiesel (M_EPOORDB_8BDPC_NUS_MMGL) and "renewable diesel and other biofuels" (M_EPOOROO_8BDPC_NUS_MMGL). The second is a blended bucket — renewable jet, heating oil, and naphtha capacity are folded in — so implied utilization (latest month annualized ×12 ÷ nameplate) is computed for biodiesel only; a renewable-diesel ratio against the blended bucket would mislead.

Both reports release the same day, monthly with a ~2-month lag (EIA Petroleum Supply Monthly). PSM figures are preliminary until the annual Petroleum Supply Annual, so the full history is refetched at every refresh; the view flags itself overdue once ~100 days pass from the end of the latest reported month.

EPA D4 balances

EPA's available-RINs file reports cumulative RIN balances by vintage, D code, and assignment status. "Available" is the unlocked balance, per the identity Generated = Retired + Locked + Available (EPA definitions).

No coverage ratio is published. Dividing available RINs by an applicable volume overstates what these balances can say: at most 20% of a year's obligation may be met with prior-vintage RINs (40 CFR 80.1427); prior-vintage availability falls as pending compliance retirements post; the balance mixes assigned and separated RINs; and D4 RINs also serve the nested advanced and total-renewable obligations. Any single ratio built on these balances would mislead, so the app reports the balances and stops there.

Strategies view

The Strategies view is a mechanism reference: it describes recurring structural relationships in the RFS program — nesting substitution between D codes, the two-year vintage window and 20% prior-vintage allowance, production-margin linkage to feedstock and distillate markets, deadline-driven compliance demand, and step-wise regulatory repricing — as defined in regulation or documented in the public record; the production-margin and event-repricing framings are market convention, not rule.

It states no directional views, recommends no positions, and carries no price levels. Historical episodes are dated events cited to their public sources; entries marked "modeled" are analyst projections (e.g. farmdoc daily's balance-sheet model), not EPA figures. Nothing in that view — or anywhere in this app — is investment advice.

Sources

EPA RFS public data hub — EMTS RIN-generation CSV, published monthly ~3–4 weeks after month-end.

EPA Final Renewable Fuel Standards for 2026 and 2027 — applicable volumes.

Refresh

Weekly automated check; the app updates when EPA posts a new month. A staleness flag appears when more than 75 days have passed since the start of the last publication month.