Ethanol coalition welcomes ‘Gap-Year’ waiver petition denials, denounces refiners’ Supreme Court petition

In Washington, D.C., the Renewable Fuels Association, National Corn Growers Association, National Farmers Union and American Coalition for Ethanol welcomed reports that President Trump directed the Environmental Protection Agency to reject dozens of “gap year” small refinery exemption petitions intended to circumvent the Tenth Circuit Court’s decision in RFA et al. v. EPA. The groups also denounced CVR Refining and HollyFrontier Corporation’s last-minute request for the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Tenth Circuit Court’s ruling. The decision in question overturned three improperly granted small refinery exemptions under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).

RFA, NCGA, NFU and ACE were the four petitioners in the successful Tenth Circuit Court case, in which a panel of judges unanimously found EPA abused its authority by granting small refinery exemptions to CVR Refining and HollyFrontier that were not extensions of previously existing exemptions. In the wake of the decision, small refineries flooded EPA with 67 petitions for retroactive waivers — some dating back as far as 2011 — in an attempt to establish a chain of continuously “extended” exemptions. The four organizations offered the following statement in response to these developments: