Reuters reports Trump administration officials met with biofuel industry reps, warning they should accept the waiver proposal by Friday. Biofuel advocates from groups like Growth Energy and the National Biodiesel Board issued this joint statement.
We remain hopeful that President Trump will move swiftly to protect farmers and biofuel workers, but efforts to reverse the damage will be meaningless unless the agency acts now to stop the bleeding.
Senator Chuck Grassley says there should be no compromise between the ethanol and oil industries and the EPA has a responsibility they’re failing to uphold.
The law saws you are supposed to reallocate, in other words, you grant so many gallons to be exempted because of waivers, and just make sure they are added in at the end. So that when they tell us we’re going to get 15 billion gallons, we get 15 billion gallons.
Grassley also highlights the Obama Administration only handed out eight refinery waivers but that changed when President Trump’s administration took over.
Something happened when Pruitt got into the head of the EPA, and the big oil had a big arm running EPA, and they start granting all these waivers.
Pruitt resigned in July 2018 and the current EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler took his place. Wheeler says the agency currently has no plans for reallocating lost gallons.