Biofuel groups call GAO report on SREs shoddy, obsolete
Summary
First, the agency recommends that the EPA reassess its conclusion that small refineries recover their RFS compliance costs in the price of gasoline and diesel they sell. In addition, the GAO says the EPA should identify and communicate what refineries would need to submit to demonstrate disproportionate economic hardship; develop policies and procedures for making SRE decisions; and develop policies and procedures to ensure the agency meets statutory deadlines; and assess the effect of SRE decision timing on the benefit provided to small refineries, as well as the effect on fuel markets, and reconsider petition requirements. In the summer of 2019, a bipartisan group of renewable fuel supporters in both the House and Senate asked the GAO to investigate the gross mismanagement of the small refinery exemption program by former EPA Administrators Scott Pruitt and Andy Wheeler,” said Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the RFA. “In the past, SREs were improperly granted to refiners, not because of disproportionate economic hardship, but as a political tool to let the oil industry off the hook for its biofuel blending obligations,” Skor added. “President Biden himself condemned the past abuse of refinery exemptions that ‘decimated our trade economy and forced ethanol plants to shutter.’ That demand destruction came at the expense of farmers and biofuel producers – in addition to American drivers who lost access to lower-cost, lower-carbon fuel options at the pump.