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Renewable fuels industry concerned as EPA approves wave of refinery waivers

The Renewable Fuels Association is alarmed by the growing number of small refinery exemptions being processed by the EPA.

CEO Geoff Cooper tells Brownfield the agency has granted a massive amount of waivers the past two months.

“So we’re now around 160 exemptions dating all the way back to 2016, and this is cause for concern for the industry because EPA is essentially going to be returning RIN credits to some of these refineries for some of these exemptions.”

He says many of those credits will probably be used to meet obligations in lieu of refineries purchasing and blending physical volumes of renewable fuels.

“I guess the only thing that would really alleviate that concern would be if EPA fully reallocates these exempted volumes and adds them back to the 2026 and 2027 RVO’s. And we don’t know if EPA is going to do that.”

The EPA says the latest decision on SRE’s is part of the Trump administration’s commitment to get the Renewable Fuel Standard back on track with an approach that recognizes some small refineries are impacted more significantly than others.