The use of biofuels, such as renewable diesel to power commercial vehicles has become increasingly common in the U.S. as the trucking industry works to shift away from fossil fuels to more sustainable, environmentally friendly options.
Along the way, Congress has put together a variety of tax incentives for biofuels, and some states have incentives in place as well. At the federal level, the work has been coordinated between the Internal Revenue Service and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): One has an interest in your bottom line while the other is concerned with carbon emissions.
A fleet manager’s job is much the same as these agencies — reduce fuel usage and track savings. After all, aside from personnel, fuel is probably the largest operating expense for a carrier. Likewise, it’s in the best interest of the trucking industry to reduce its carbon footprint, if only to comply with EPA stipulations.
While the EPA has put the brakes on implementing some of the more extreme emissions regulations for ground vehicles, the goal of reducing emissions and protecting the planet remains the same.
Renewable Fuel Standard program
Times are changing. Tax credits are going by the wayside and being replaced with biofuels and Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), jointly required for compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.
Under the RFS, a certain amount of renewable energy fuel must be blended with fossil fuels and sold annually. The RFS was originally established under the 2005 Energy Policy Act and expanded in the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act. Most recently, blending requirements were included in the “Big, Beautiful Bill” signed into law earlier this summer.
While the particulars of the blending requirements and processes are best left to the experts, fleet managers should have at least a rudimentary understanding of RINs.
According to Farm Progress, a source of news for the agriculture industry, RINs are “a complicated but integral part of the Renewable Fuel Standard, established to help force the petroleum industry to blend ethanol into fuel.”
This is an overly simplified definition, but the word “complicated” is spot on. Still, exactly what are RINs, and how do they impact a fleet’s use of biofuels?
RINs are credits created as part of the government’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are applicable to fuel used for transportation, heating and jets. According to the RFS program, obligated parties — refiners and importers of gasoline or diesel — are required to sell a certain volume of renewable fuels, a figure the EPA sets annually. To comply with this volume requirement, obligated parties can either blend fuels or purchase RINs from other companies that produce them.
RINs could be considered the “currency” of the RFS. After all, an RIN — like the dollar — is nothing more than a paper commodity representing a value given to it by economic forces.
RINs can be compared to carbon credits in that they’re payments that help a company offset its emissions. On the other hand, companies that are overproducing blended fuels can sell RINs for a profit.
In technical terms, a RIN is nothing more than a 38-digit code for a batch of fuel. This RIN follows the batch from import to blending and use (or retirement). Among other information, the code indicates the year, company, facility and equivalence value (or how many gallons of renewable fuel equals a RIN).
RINs follow a life cycle that includes generation (a code’s creation when fuel is produced or imported); buying and selling (exchange in the marketplace); separation (detached from fuel for trade); and retirement (fulfill compliance or regulatory requirements.
Before generating RINs, a blender must register with the EPA. The EPA assigns “D” codes to each batch that reflects the feedstock type, production process and greenhouse gas reduction. For instance, ethanol (D6) is equivalent to 1 RIN per gallon; biodiesel (D4) to 1.5 RINs per gallon; and renewable diesel (D4) to 1.7 RINs per gallon.
Achieving fleet goals
“If you were to take a truckload of biofuel, you’re reducing 66.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide in the environment” said Ginger Laidlaw, vice president of the Alternative Fuel Council during a recent TCA webinar about biofuel incentives.
That’s what RINs are ultimately all about — reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
For fleet managers, RINs help achieve three goals:
- They help save money and improve fuel margins. RINs help end users know what incentives are available to those companies that create them, providing information needed when setting annual fuel contracts. As the value of RINs are tracked by the EPA, purchasers are better able to gauge the price of fuel overall and ensure their contracts are in line with market prices.
- They assist in quality control, informing fleet managers of the type of diesel or degree of blend used in their equipment.
- They help carriers achieve their climate-related goals as related to carbon footprints.
The RIN marketplace
The RIN marketplace is difficult to understand, mainly because RINs are not products in themselves. Instead, they are a tool — a paper or electronic trading mechanism that allows the market to equalize between petroleum refiners and meet EPA goals for biofuel capacity.
Refiners that purchase biofuels or renewable diesel generate their own RINs to turn into the EPA at the end of each year. Instead of producing biofuel, smaller refiners instead purchase RINs on the marketplace and turn those in to the EPA to prove annual compliance. The need for some refiners to purchase what others produce leads to market prices that are volatile, depending on a given year’s EPA requirement and availability of RINs.
For more information about the RFS and RINs, visit the Alternative Fuels Council website at natsoaltfuels.com.
This story originally appeared in the September/October 2025 edition of Truckload Authority, the official publication of the Truckload Carriers Association.
Since retiring from a career as an outdoor recreation professional from the State of Arkansas, Kris Rutherford has worked as a freelance writer and, with his wife, owns and publishes a small Northeast Texas newspaper, The Roxton Progress. Kris has worked as a ghostwriter and editor and has authored seven books of his own. He became interested in the trucking industry as a child in the 1970s when his family traveled the interstates twice a year between their home in Maine and their native Texas. He has been a classic country music enthusiast since the age of nine when he developed a special interest in trucking songs.
