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EPA administrator explains why new ethanol waiver apps are accepted

The Administrator of the EPA says the recent applications for retroactive or “gap” Small Refinery Exemptions under the Renewable Fuel Standard must be treated like other requests for exemptions.  Andrew Wheeler tells Brownfield he is not sure exactly how many waiver requests have been filed. “The statute does allow people to file their applications for waivers at any time, and at any time is in the statute. So, we have received some. We’ve not process reviewed them yet. We’ve sent them over to the Department of Energy when we received them and Department of Energy is currently reviewing them.”

Ethanol supporters wrote to Wheeler June 9^th asking how many petitions were filed and for what compliance years. 

Wheeler tells Brownfield none of the new requests are currently under EPA review. “We have not made any decisions at the agency. We, quite frankly, it’s premature for us to make any decisions because we haven’t gotten any recommendations back from the Department of Energy.”

Wheeler says the agency still has 2019 applications to consider. “We also included in the RVO for 2020 the almost, actually over 700-million gallons for small refiners. We’ve not processed the 2019 applications because of the court decision.”

Ethanol supporters including Emily Skor from Growth Energy say the retroactive “gap filings” from refiners are trying to show a continuous need and is an attempt to circumvent the Tenth Circuit Court ruling upholding ethanol blending requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Administrator Wheeler spoke to Brownfield at Milwaukee and at a West Bend, Wisconsin dairy farm Monday.