The National Biodiesel Board says the Environmental Protection Agency should set the 2020 Biomass-based Diesel obligation at 2.8 billion gallons and appropriately account for small refinery exemptions. Testifying to the EPA during a public hearing on the Renewable Fuel Standard Wednesday, NBB and its members asked the EPA to make the change based on the agency’s own analysis in the proposed rule showing that the volume is achievable next year. NBB also told the EPA it must reduce the uncertainty it has caused by issuing retroactive small refiner hardship exemptions. The action, according to NBB executives, is needed to “provide the certainty that the biodiesel industry needs.” EPA has estimated that the small refinery hardship exemptions it retroactively granted to refiners reduced the 2016 and 2017 RVOs by a combined 2.25 billion gallons. NBB estimates the 2016 and 2017 exemptions reduced demand for biodiesel by more than 300 million gallons.