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.
| Category | 2026 | 2027 | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total renewable fuel | 26.81 | 27.02 | final rule |
| Advanced biofuel | 11.10 | 11.32 | final rule |
| D3 | 1.36 | 1.43 | final rule |
| D4 | 9.07 | 9.20 | final rule |
| D5 | — | — | nested in the advanced total; no standalone volume |
| D6 | 15.71 | 15.70 | implied non-advanced residual (total − advanced); not a standalone D6 RVO |
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.
D4 bank
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).
The derived coverage metric divides eligible-vintage available D4 RINs (the benchmark year and the prior vintage — a vintage serves its own compliance year and the next; the counted vintages are stated in the data itself) by the 2026 D4 applicable volume. Assigned and separated are combined; locked RINs are excluded; the figure is gross of pending 2025-compliance retirements. It is a coverage indicator, not a usable-bank estimate or compliance forecast.
Carryover cap: at most 20% of a year's obligation may be met with prior-vintage RINs (40 CFR 80.1427). The derived metric is gross of this cap.
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.