By Stephanie Kelly and Jarrett Renshaw

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has sent a proposed rule to the White House for review on the amount of biofuels oil refiners must blend into their fuel beginning in 2026.

The politically powerful oil and biofuel lobbies have awaited the proposed rule since President Donald Trump took office in January.

It will be one of the first opportunities for the Republican president to show his level of support for biofuels policy, which historically has pitted Big Oil and the Farm Belt against each other.

That dynamic shifted in the lead-up to this proposed rule, as a coalition of oil and biofuel groups recommended the EPA, which administers the volumes, propose federal mandates for biomass-based diesel blending for 2026 at 5.25 billion gallons, Reuters previously reported.

That figure would be a significant increase from previous mandates.

Soybean oil futures on the Chicago Board of Trade fell over 5% on Thursday on rumors the EPA’s proposed rule would set biomass-based diesel blending for 2026 at 4.65 billion gallons. Reuters could not confirm that figure.

The EPA was expected to propose a rule that covers both 2026 and 2027, Reuters previously reported.

The EPA’s previous rulemaking on renewable volume obligations finalized total federal volumes at 20.94 billion gallons in 2023, 21.54 billion gallons in 2024 and 22.33 billion gallons in 2025.

Under the Renewable Fuel Standard, oil refiners must blend biofuels into their fuel or buy tradable credits from those that do.

Small refiners can petition the EPA to receive an exemption from the obligations, known as SREs. As of Thursday, the EPA had dozens of pending petitions from refiners across various compliance years.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in front of a House of Representatives committee on Thursday that resolving the SRE petitions was "very important."

"None of these were getting approved at all in the last administration," Zeldin said. "We want to get caught up as quickly as we can."