Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 89: Motor Fuels Tax Moves Into Energy Compliance Services

In this episode of Motor Fuels Tax Minute, our hosts are joined by Wade Watson, partner-in-charge, energy compliance services, to announce the move of the motor fuels tax service line from tax into energy compliance services (ECS).

 
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Detailed Description of Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, Episode 89

00:00:00
Leanne: Welcome to Weaver’s Motor Fuels Tax Minute, the vlog where we talk all things motor fuel. Some exciting changes here in the motor fuels tax group. We have officially moved out of tax and into advisory and are now part of energy compliance services. That’s nothing for anybody to be concerned about. When it relates to our service offerings, everything stays the same and our team stays the same.

But we’re now aligned with energy compliance services and I’m joined by partner-in-charge, Wade Watson. So, tell us a little bit about energy compliance services, the other business units and how we fit in so well.

00:00:34
Wade: Well, let me first just say I’m very happy to be here. I’m very happy to have you guys on the team as well.

It’s just amazing and something we’ve been talking about for a very long time. You know, the motor fuels tax team, the services that you guys offer are very much in line with the services that we offer and the clients that we deal with within the industry. So, it’s made a lot of sense for a long time.

So, when I think about ECS as a whole, that’s the acronym that we use, I think about the fact that we’re kind of like a one-stop shop, and I’ve always had a caveat on the end of it, which is except tax, non-tax. So now we can take off that caveat. It’s great. But generally speaking, within ECS, we focus on federal, state and local fuels regulations. Canadian requirements as well. So federal and provincial in that case.

We spend a lot of time on the federal fuels requirements. So, part 1090 as it relates to gasoline and diesel, those requirements. And then a lot of time on the renewable fuel standards as well. So, part 80, a lot of changes that happened over the years, throughout the years of the RFS program being around, but certainly more recently with the biogas and REG industry, which was last year.

But it’s been great. The practice has grown tremendously over the years. We currently have about 150 people on the ECS team, including you guys now. And, you know, there is a lot of room to grow as well. In addition to you guys joining the team, some other new things are going on.

We have expanded our GHG emissions services more recently. And so that is what we call it as sort of our GHG consulting team. A lot of that team is really focused on modeling. So, modeling tied to say the 45Z with Argonne Great, California Great as well. So, a lot of good things happening in that group.

And then lastly, we’ve rolled out a software back in the fall. It’s called FuelRules®. And so that software houses all of the, effectively all the U.S. federal, state, and local fuels requirements. It’s a great tool.

We’ve had a lot of interest and traction on that here recently. We actually just sent out a compliance alert earlier this morning to kind of advertise that and provide more color on what the software has to offer. It’s customizable. Like I mentioned, all the federal, state and local fuel requirements in one central platform. So, it’s easy to navigate. We have Weaver commentary where we kind of summarize some of those requirements built into the software as well.

We also have a resource center. The resource center contains a lot of guidance documents that we’ve written over the years. It has some tax information. We’re going to expand on that in the future as well. Built-in fuels waivers. So, if there’s any kind of fuel waiver that’s issued, federal or state, we have a database of those built in as well.

It’s been great. And more great things to come, right?

00:03:48
Leanne: Yep. And we’ll be working over the next few months to integrate some of the tax piece into fuel rules and the resource center.

But Kelly, I know you have a question about our little friends.

00:03:58
Kelly: Well, to start off with, one of the reasons why I joined Weaver, not just to work with Leanne again, who I love working with, but was this ECS piece, because I found that fascinating. It’s something that sets Weaver apart from other consulting firms. So, I look forward to us learning more about that and maybe bringing some more ECS people onto our Motor Fuels Tax Minute.

What I will ask about, the other reason why I’m happy to join is Maizey. Give us a little more information about these guys.

00:04:27
Wade: Maizey is the newest addition to our Weaver animals, if you will, related to ECS. So, we started with WarRIN way back in the day. And that was tied to the RFS program, WAR, W-A-R, capital R, capital I, capital N, right? And so over the years, it rolled out more and more practice related animals.

So, this is our newest addition. So it’s tied to opportunities for the corn industry or ethanol industry, corn kernel fiber, the QAP program that we offer surrounding that and other services surrounding that as well. We try to tie these animals into different regulations that we deal with. Like we had one a number of years ago for RFS, multiple for RFS, but also LCFS.

00:05:16
Kelly: Nice.

00:05:17
Wade: So, but yeah. So we have to create one now for Motor Fuels Tax.

00:05:20
Leanne: Yeah, we’ll get our thinking hats on. Yeah. You know, we have some great watchers with lots of good ideas. Maybe somebody can suggest some ideas in the comments.

00:05:31
Wade: Absolutely.

00:05:32
Kelly: I love that. So, if you have a favorite animal that you can figure out a clever name that ties into the fuel industry, please drop it in the comments below or just drop a favorite animal and we can run with that.

All right. Thank you so much for joining this Motor Fuels Tax Minute with us. Thank you again, Wade, for joining us. We look forward to talking to you guys next time.