A dozen lawmakers, including House Agriculture chairman Collin Peterson, called on Wednesday for a review of the explosion in ethanol waivers awarded by the EPA in the past two years. In a letter to the Government Accountability Office, a congressional agency, the lawmakers said many of the small-volume refineries that applied for waivers did not need them according to an Energy Department analysis.
“Our concerns stem from the economic consequences to our rural communities created by exempting nearly 4 billion gallons of small-refinery exemptions from the [Renewable Fuel Standard], a standard intended to expand the nation’s renewable fuels sector,” said the U.S. representatives in a letter spearheaded by Rep. Abby Finkenauer, an Iowa Democrat.
The EPA issued 31 “hardship” waivers on Aug. 9. The number of annual waivers has quadrupled under the Trump administration. “It is imperative that we fully understand how EPA is reaching these conclusions despite DOE’s viability analysis,” said the letter. The oil industry says the waivers save small refineries from ruinously high costs of buying credits if they cannot comply with the RFS.
Separately, the National Corn Growers Association said the EPA “must account for the waived gallons … to keep the RFS whole.” The RFS guarantees biofuels a share of the gasoline market and requires refiners to blend a mandated amount of ethanol into gasoline. Farm groups and allies in Congress say that if the EPA exempts a refinery from complying with the ethanol mandate, it should reallocate to another refinery the responsibility for blending ethanol.
In urging its members to comment on the EPA’s proposed biofuel mandate for 2020, the NCGA said, “EPA’s proposal fails to account for projected waivers and ignores a 2017 court decision that EPA improperly cut 500 million gallons of renewable fuels blending in 2016.” The deadline for public comment is Aug. 30.
“Already, dozens of biofuel plants have closed or cut production, and hundreds of millions of bushels of grain are falling in value, just as farmers face the worst economic conditions in a generation,” said Growth Energy, a biofuels trade group. “The EPA needs to account for these lost gallons immediately and start repairing the damage before more rural communities lose hope for a comeback.”