Wildlife Federation sides with OK Gov Stitt in biofuels waiver stand

In a move supportive of Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and a few others, the National Wildlife Federation believes EPA’s Andrew Wheeler should use the agency’s waiver authority to reduce blending requirements under the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The green group, one of a handful of enviros to engage in the biofuels program in recent years, said in a letter to Wheeler released Monday that because of environmental destruction they attribute to the program, they agree with the governors of Louisiana, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, that the RFS requirement, called the Renewable Volume Obligation, should be lowered.

“Higher blends of ethanol necessitated by unrealistic RVOs diminish public health. In light of the clear and present danger to the environment, we join with the Governors of six states in asking for a waiver to the RVO,” NWF wrote.

It was mid-April when Gov. Stitt and four other governors wrote the EPA asking for the nationwide waiver exempting the oil-refining industry from the nation’s biofuels law.

“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.

Source: POLITICO’s Morning Energy Report