On Monday, Growth Energy filed a petition in the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s failure to address small refinery exemptions in its 2019 Renewable Volume Obligation (RVO) rulemaking.
“EPA’s inaction on addressing lost gallons due to small refinery exemptions in this rulemaking is a clear violation of the law,” says Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor. “In doing nothing to remedy these and other deficiencies, EPA has again failed to meet its statutory obligation to ensure that annual RVOs are met each year. The filing calls for greater accountability from EPA to ensure that every renewable fuel obligation is fulfilled as the law intended.”
The EPA has a deadline of November 30th each year to issue their RVOs, which establish the total volume of renewable fuel that must be blended with transportation fuel for the upcoming calendar year. In July of 2018, the industry found out that in previous years, the EPA had been granting an unprecedented amount of small refinery exemptions to numerous refiners. The EPA made no apparent effort to publicly identify the refineries that received the exemptions. In the petition, Growth Energy is challenging the EPA’s failure to reallocate the renewable volume obligations of exempt refiners.