Refineries demand ethanol waivers — or else
WASHINGTON — An attorney representing a group of unnamed refineries is threatening to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if it doesn’t start granting waivers from the federal ethanol mandate.
The attorney, LeAnn Johnson Koch, a Washington energy attorney with the law firm Perkins Coie, said in a letter Wednesday that refiners would file a federal lawsuit in 60 days unless the EPA starts issuing waivers, which are granted to smaller refineries that can prove the mandate poses a financial hardship.
“The uncertainty over whether or not hardship relief will be granted has tied up small refineries’ precious working capital and prevented them from investing in their refineries to make efficiency improvements to remain competitive and profitable,” the letter said.
The legal threat comes as the Trump administration has delayed issuing waivers to refineries, following political pushback from Midwestern corn farmers, who sell their crops to ethanol producers to make fuel. Trump had hoped his decision to loosen air pollution restrictions to allow the year-round sale of the fuel E15, which contains 15 percent ethanol compared with 10 percent in standard gasoline, would assuage farmers’ objections to the waivers.
But following a visit to Iowa, Trump reportedly told EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to look into the ethanol waiver program.
“They’re concerned and I think the president heard that concern directly from farmers,” Geoff Cooper, president of the ethanol industry trade group Renewable Fuels Association, said earlier this month. “The yearround allowance for E15 doesn’t do much if anything for ethanol demand if the (mandate) is not being fully enforced.”
Little used in previous administration, ethanol waivers have been handed out at a fast clip by the Trump administration. Last year more than 30 refineries across the country were issued exemptions, allowing them to avoid blending or buying biofuel credits for an estimated 1.2 billion gallons of ethanol — about 8 percent of their total obligation under federal law, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
Koch declined to make public the name of her clients in her letter, saying their participation in the waiver program is confidential.