Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Oil refiners try a new strategy to get around biofuel blending requirements: claiming hardship from pandemic

In the latest salvo of the oil-versus-ethanol battle, "Refiners are aiming to escape biofuel blending rules by winding back the clock, asking the EPA for economic hardship status dating back to 2013 that would free them from their obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard," Ryan McCrimmon reports for Politico's Morning Agriculture.

In March, the Trump administration declined to appeal a court decision that limited refinery waivers, seeming to signal an end to large oil refiners' use of waivers to get around fuel blending requirements. The court decision specified that EPA could only grant waivers to small refiners that had been continuously exempt from the biofuel blending requirements since the program began in 2013, McCrimmon reports. So now, "Refiners are now petitioning the EPA for economic hardship status dating back to then, allowing them to meet the court’s standard going forward."

The move puts President Trump in an awkward position as he looks toward the November election. "The oil and agriculture industries are key pieces of Trump’s political base, and he’s long been caught in the middle of their fight over federal biofuel policy — especially the use of blending waivers, which ethanol producers claim are crushing their business," McCrimmon writes.

The EPA hasn't taken action on refiners' request for economic hardship status, Stephanie Kelly reports for Reuters. But the Department of Energy, which reviews waiver applications before making recommendations to the EPA, said last month that the department would review retroactive blending waivers.

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