U.S. environmental regulators quietly changed the way they assess applications f...
- U.S. environmental regulators quietly changed the way they assess applications from refineries for waivers from the nation’s biofuels law, making it possible for highly profitable plants to secure lucrative exemptions, according to court documents filed by a biofuels trade group on Thursday.
The expansion of the waiver program saved the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars but angered farmers in the nation’s heartland, who said it crushed the credit prices that are an integral part of the ethanol industry. Under the RFS, refiners must mix biofuels like ethanol with their gasoline and diesel, but smaller refineries can be exempted if they can prove that complying would cause them measurable financial harm.
Prior to May 2017, a refinery would have to pass both tests to get an exemption, ABFA alleged, citing EPA correspondence with a refiner it said it had obtained. The EPA turned over documents related to 48 applications for waivers to the ABFA as part of the legal discovery process. In 24 cases, the Energy Department gave the applicant a viability score of zero, meaning the RFS would have no impact on the refinery’s ability to stay competitive and profitable, but the EPA still granted the waiver, ABFA alleged in the court documents.
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