New Bill Bans Electric Vehicle Credits from Fuel Standards, Favoring Traditional Biofuels

The aptly named No Fuel Credits for Batteries Act of 2025 is short, but its impact on how the U.S. measures renewable energy in transportation is huge. This bill cuts the legs out from under a specific mechanism designed to recognize renewable electricity—like that used to charge an electric car—as a way to meet federal renewable fuel mandates. Specifically, it tells the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it absolutely cannot authorize or allow credits, often called eRINs, based on renewable electricity to be generated for compliance with the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) for gasoline and diesel.

The Battle Over the Fuel Tank

To understand this, you have to know about the RFS. It’s a federal program that requires transportation fuel sold in the U.S. to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels, like ethanol or biodiesel. Compliance is tracked using Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs), which are essentially tradeable credits. For years, there has been a push to allow renewable electricity—the power you use to charge an EV—to generate these same credits (eRINs), recognizing that EVs are part of the renewable transportation mix.

This bill slams the door shut on that idea (SEC. 2). It says that electricity made from renewable fuel cannot be used to generate these credits. If you’re a company that invested in charging infrastructure or renewable power generation with the expectation of selling these eRINs to offset costs, this bill pulls the rug out from under you immediately. The law mandates the EPA must stop the use or transfer of any such credits that were created before the bill becomes law, creating instant financial uncertainty for those who were counting on them.

Who Wins, Who Pays?

This legislation essentially narrows the definition of what counts as a renewable transportation fuel, keeping the focus squarely on liquid biofuels like corn ethanol and biodiesel. If you are a producer of these traditional liquid fuels, this bill is a win because it eliminates a major, emerging competitor for compliance credits. Your RINs remain valuable without the market being flooded by credits tied to electric vehicles.

However, if you work in the renewable energy sector—say, developing solar farms or biogas facilities that feed power into the grid to charge EVs—you lose a crucial financial incentive. For the average person, this matters because eRINs were a mechanism intended to make the transition to EVs more economically attractive, which often translates to lower costs or more infrastructure options down the road. By limiting the ways companies can meet renewable mandates, this bill restricts the EPA's flexibility and potentially slows down the integration of renewable electricity into our transportation system.

The Real-World Impact on Your Commute

Think about what this means for the future of transportation. The RFS is supposed to drive innovation toward cleaner fuels. By explicitly excluding renewable electricity from this key compliance mechanism, the bill sends a clear signal: the focus remains on biofuels, not on electrification. For the commuter thinking about buying an EV, this legislation removes a potential market driver that could have helped finance more charging stations or cleaner grid energy. It’s a regulatory move that prioritizes one type of renewable energy (liquid fuels) over another (electric power) within the transportation mandate, potentially locking in existing fuel pathways instead of accelerating the shift to newer, electric options.