A bipartisan group of senators called on the president to reject a previous request for Renewable Fuel Standard waivers from five oil-state governors, reported POLITICO. It means Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt finds himself in a political fight with Senators who are from mostly corn-producing states that rely heavily on the production of biofuels.
“Waiving the RFS would cause further harm to the U.S. economy, especially our most vulnerable rural communities,” wrote the senators, led by Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.). “It would also exacerbate the effects experienced by the biofuel sector as a result of COVID-19, causing far-reaching detrimental impacts on employment, farmers, food security, fuel prices, and the environment.”
The senators noted that the collapse in driving due to the pandemic has already idled 46 percent of U.S. ethanol production capacity.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt was one of five Governors to ask the Trump administration in April for a nationwide waiver exempting the oil-refining industry from the nation’s biofuels law to help oil and gas operators survive the oil crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
“As our country comes to grips with this national emergency, continuing to implement the current (biofuel requirements) imposes an added obligation that would ‘severely’ harm the sector, and consequently harm the economy of the States and the Nation,” stated Stitt and the governors of Texas, Wyoming and Utah after Louisiana’s governor sent a separate letter. Each was sent to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler.
“On behalf of our States, and in light of economic circumstances facing our States and the Nation as a whole, please expedite this request for a waiver of the renewable volume obligation (RVO) under the federal Renewable Fuel Standard,” they wrote in the letter.
The exemptions were overturned by a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in recent weeks and directly applied to the CVR Refining company in Wynnewood, Oklahoma as well as two other small refineries in Wyoming.
Source: POLITICO