The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today, National Ag Day, granted five additional Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Small Refinery Exemptions (SRE) for the 2017 compliance year, waiving 366 million gallons of biofuels from RFS compliance.
EPA’s decision today brings the total waivers from 2016 and 2017 RFS obligations to 53, amounting to 2.61 billion ethanol-equivalent gallons. In years prior to 2016, SREs totaled less than 300 million gallons per year.
This action continues to chip away at the RFS and corn demand, hurting America’s corn farmers. NCGA has called for EPA to account for these lost volumes and disclose which refineries receive these waivers and why the waivers are justified.
The five refineries receiving today’s exemptions produced approximately 3.4 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel in 2017, resulting in 366 million Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) being exempted.
Currently, EPA has two remaining refinery exemption petitions for 2017. Refineries have also submitted 39 petitions for 2018 exemptions that EPA has yet to make decisions on.
NCGA is a part of legal actions against the EPA for their abuse of small refinery waivers and will continue to stand up for farmers and a strong RFS.
