EPA's Back-Door RFS Waiver?

The Environmental Protection Agency has opened its own "back-door waiver" to the Renewable Fuel Standard by granting retroactive exemptions to RFS obligations to more than a dozen small refiners, including some that are part of highly-profitable refining conglomerates. I smell a rat. I smell a rat," said Scott Irwin, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois who studies the Renewable Fuel Standard. In examining how EPA is granting exemptions to RFS obligations, Irwin said, "This is real and there are large uncertainty on the market impacts."Reuters reported Tuesday that Andeavor, one of the country's largest refiners, got an RFS obligation exemption for three of its smaller refineries. The RFS exemption was meant to apply to small refineries producing under 75,000 barrels a day that demonstrate economic hardship. Andeavor as a company posted $1.5 billion in profits last year, Reuters reported.