Regulation of Fuels and Fuel Additives: Renewable Fuel Standard ...

equired of any party that owns RINs during the compliance period covered by the report.
The transactional report is necessary because compliance with the RVO is primarily
demonstrated through self-reporting of RIN trades and therefore it is necessary for
Agency personnel to be able to link transactions involving each unique RIN in order to
verify compliance. We will be able to import reports into our compliance database and
match RINs to transactions across their entire journey from generation to use. As with
our other 40 CFR Part 80 compliance-on-average and credit trading programs, many
potential violations are expected to be self-reported. Because the use of RINs permits
great flexibility in meeting the RVO, we believe that obligated parties and others who
create and handle RINs (including brokers) will benefit from self-reporting.
The third type of report will summarize RIN activities for the previous year and
will include the total number of RINs owned, used for compliance, transferred and
expired. This report would not include details of every RIN owned or used, since this
information would be included in the compliance and transactional reports. Instead, this
third report would simply summarize the total number of RINs falling into different
categories.
All reports submitted to us would have to be signed and certified as true and
correct by a responsible corporate officer. This can be done electronically. As discussed
above, we plan to utilize a highly simplified electronic method of reporting via the
Agency’s Central Data Exchange that is secure, provides encryption and reliable
electronic signatures, and that permits us to accept reports in the submitter’s choice of
simple comma delimited text or commercially available spreadsheet packages.
We are proposing annual reporting only. However, we encourage comments
related to the frequency of reporting. We are particularly interested in comments related
to the frequency of transactional reports related to RINs and whether these reports should
be submitted quarterly rather than annually. We also request comment on our proposed
requirement that three distinct types of reports be submitted for each calendar year,
specifically whether these reports could be simplified or whether a smaller number of
reports could provide the same information.
3. Recordkeeping
The proposed recordkeeping requirements for obligated parties and exporters of
renewable fuel support the enforcement of the use of RINs for compliance purposes.
Product transfer documents (PTDs) are central to tracking individual RINs through the
fungible distribution system when those RINs are assigned to batches of renewable fuel.
PTDs are customarily issued in the course of business (i.e., issuing them is a “customary
business practice”) and are familiar to parties who transfer or receive fuel. As with other
fuels programs, PTDs may take many forms, including bills of lading, as long as they
travel with the volume of renewable fuel being transferred. Specifically, we propose that
on each occasion any person transfers ownership of renewable fuels subject to this
proposed regulation that they provide the transferee documents identifying the renewable
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