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Ethanol officials call on Trump to address refinery waivers

Ethanol industry officials are calling on President Trump to address the issue of RFS small refinery waivers.

Todd Becker, CEO of Omaha-based Green Plains Renewable Energy, says there’s no question those waivers have hurt ethanol demand.

“We got hurt pretty bad on that situation,” Becker says. “We are pressing the White House to make changes to that. We’re pressing the EPA to stop that—and I think this new administrator (Wheeler) is going to listen a little bit more than the last administrator (Pruitt).”

EPA received 39 small refinery exemption petitions for 2018, but has yet to announce a decision. Growth Energy’s Emily Skor hopes the agency will change its stance.

“You cannot be quadrupling the number of exemptions—and if you do give an exemption, you’ve got to reallocate that demand among the rest of the refineries,” Skor says.

Geoff Cooper with Renewable Fuels Association questions why Big Oil needs the RFS waivers.

“It’s challenging to say with a straight face that a company like ExxonMobil or Chevron somehow warrants, or deserves, an exemption from its RFS obligations,” he says.

The industry greatly appreciates Trump delivering on his promise of year-round E15, Cooper says, “but we want to make that it is not undermined, or erased, by more small refinery exemptions.”

Becker, Skor and Cooper spoke with Brownfield this week prior to President Trump’s speech at an ethanol plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa.