On February 2, 2012, the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") issued a Notice of Violation ("NOV") of the Renewable Fuel Standard ("RFS") to Absolute Fuels, a company located in Lubbock, Texas. The NOV alleges that between August 31, 2010, and October 11, 2011, Absolute Fuels generated over 48 million Renewable Identification Numbers ("RINs") and that all of these RINs were invalid. This EPA action is likely to have a substantial impact on the overall RIN market and could be followed by related NOVs to other market participants.
The Absolute Fuels NOV represents the second major enforcement action by the EPA under the RFS. The first action alleged invalid generation of over 32 million RINs by Clean Green Fuel. The Clean Green Fuel action proceeded with a criminal filing by the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland and was followed by the EPA’s filing of 24 NOVs against the companies that utilized the Clean Green Fuel RINs for compliance with RFS obligations. EPA did not allege that the obligated parties that received the Clean Green Fuel RINs had any knowledge or reasonable basis to have knowledge regarding the RINs’ invalidity. This alert provides an analysis of the regulatory basis for these EPA enforcement actions.