House bill would force government to name oil refiners that get hardship waivers under ethanol blending law - Entrepreneur Generations

A House bill would force the government to reveal the identities of oil refineries that receive hardship waivers under the Renewable Fuel Standard, a lightning rod issue that has increasingly incensed both corn and oil interests.

"The waiver program is meant to benefit small refineries who argue that blending in ethanol would cause a hardship. But Democrats have targeted the program since it was revealed that some of those refineries were owned by major oil companies," Rebecca Beitsch reports for The Hill.

The bill, proposed in May by Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., and supported by a bipartisan group of House Committee on Agriculture members "would put an end to what Rep. Jerry McNerney [D, Calif.] called the 'secretive and capricious nature' of the waivers that largely keep recipients a secret due to business confidentiality concerns," Beitsch reports. A subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee reviewed the bill in a hearing Tuesday. Rep. Bill Flores, R-Texas, said it would be impossible to please both sides: "We’re not going to find the perfect solution to give everyone 100 percent of what they want."

President Trump has tried over the past two years to appease both oil and corn interests, but has largely ended up displeasing both. Corn and ethanol producers are angry because they've had to close plants and lay off workers due to the decrease in ethanol demand. But when the administration recently proposed requiring refiners to blend more ethanol into gasoline and allow year-round sales of E15 fuels, which contain 15% ethanol, both corn and oil producers opposed the plan, Beitsch reports.

Farm groups complained that the plan was a bait and switch tactic because the Environmental Protection Agency would require large refiners to add more ethanol based on government estimates instead of the actual number of exempted gallons. Refiners opposed the plan too, saying it was unfair to be subject to a government mandate on the issue, Beitsch reports.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2q8G6cJ House bill would force government to name oil refiners that get hardship waivers under ethanol blending law - Entrepreneur Generations

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