×

Warning

JUser: :_load: Unable to load user with ID: 727

Some Questions for the New EPA Administrator

  • Friday, 06 July 2018 13:19

With Scott Pruitt (finally) gone, all eyes are now on how the EPA’s new interim administrator, Andrew Wheeler, will treat the RFS.

Specifically, the focus will be on whether Wheeler, like his predecessor, is bent on taking cues from Big Oil to “reform” the RFS.

We’ve prepared a few questions that will determine if the agency, under Wheeler, restores its standing with the ethanol industry and farmers.

1. Will the EPA continue its practice of handing out RVO exemptions to oil refiners?

2. Will the EPA publicly disclose the oil refiners that received RVO exemptions for the past two years?

3. Will the EPA reveal what qualifies as “financial hardship” for the RVO exemptions?

4. Will small refineries owned by global oil giants continue to qualify for RVO exemptions?

5. Will the EPA continue to ignore some of the DOE’s recommendations on which refiners qualify for the RVO exemptions?

6. Will the EPA release new RVO targets for 2019 that account for gallons of ethanol that will be lost if it continues to hand out RVO exemptions to oil refiners?

7. Will the EPA finally provide RVP relief for E15 without attaching it to some ethanol demand destroying scheme like a RIN cap or attaching RINs to exports?