The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) Renewable Identification Numbers, RINs, are causing the refining industry a lot of grief and the American public a lot of money.
If nothing changes, the grief and the money wasted could grow rapidly, damaging the economy and family budgets. RINs are a byproduct of the Renewable Fuels Standard that mandates a certain amount of biofuels (e.g. ethanol) to be produced and used by refiners each year. The purpose of RINs is to track biofuel sales. But, fake RINs have become a problem and refiners are caught in the middle. Refiners pay for the purchase of mandated biofuels via a RIN only to have it turn out fake and then be fined by EPA for not using the required amount of biofuels.
