Chevron Agrees to Pay $1M Civil Penalty for Invalid RIN Generation: DOJ

Chevron USA has agreed to pay a civil penalty of just over $1 million stemming from violations of the Clean Air Act’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Environment and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) said in a release Wednesday.

In June 2023, Chevron disclosed that from January 2022 through August 2022, it had invalidly generated more than 2.2 million RINs on renewable diesel that had previously been used for RIN generation and then sold to third parties, according to the DOJ.

Before executing the settlement, Chevron retired valid RINs worth about $3.6 million to offset the ones it had invalidly generated, the DOJ noted in the release.

“Today’s action demonstrates the Administration’s commitment to the Renewable Fuel Standard program by ensuring that Renewable Identification Numbers generated and traded represent actual renewable fuel gallons produced,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of ENRD in the release.

“The benefits that flow from the Renewable Fuel Standard program to rural American communities depend on the integrity of program credits, and this action ensures the reliability of Renewable Identification Numbers in the marketplace,” Gustafson said.

The RFS program is a national policy that requires a certain volume of renewable fuel to be used to replace or reduce the quantity of fossil fuel in transportation fuel, home heating oil, or jet fuel.

Refiners and importers — known as “obligated parties” — must acquire and retire a specific number of RINs each year based on the amount of petroleum fuel they produce and import into the U.S. market.

Obligated parties can acquire RINs by producing renewable fuels themselves and blending that fuel into gasoline or diesel, or by purchasing them from other parties in the RIN market.

“Chevron is both a renewable fuel producer and an obligated party because it produces both renewable diesel and petroleum fuels,” according to the DOJ in the release.

Reporting by Bryan Sims, bsims@opisnet.com; Editing by Jordan Godwin, jgodwin@opisnet.com