Two years after the operators of the CVR Refinery in Wynnewood, Oklahoma joined other small refinery firms in challenging the Biden administration’s EPA decision against granting waivers of biofuel blending mandates, the Trump administration might reverse things.
Current Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin told lawmakers this week he wants quick action on 161 applications for exemptions still pending after the Biden administration refused to act on them.
“None of these were getting approved at all in the last administration,” EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a congressional hearing reported Reuters.
“We want to get caught up as quickly as we can.”
The Renewable Fuel Standard became a controversial issue in 2023 because of the mandates that forced refinery operators to blend biofuels such as corn-based ethanol into their fuels. It was accept the mandate or the operators could apply to the EPA to get an exemption for financial hardship.
The CVR refinery in southern Oklahoma was among several small firms that took the EPA to court where in December 2023, it it won an appeals court decision over the agency.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of a group of six small refineries that the Environmental Protection Agency had invoked an “impermissiblly retroactive” standard on the refineries in order to comply with the Clean Air Acts renewable fuel standards.
“Petitioners justifiably relied on EPA’s past agency practice when applying for the exemptions at issue,” Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote for the 2-1 majority, reported Bloomberg.