NEWS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Contact: Paul Winters
 202-737-8803
pwinters@biodiesel.org

WASHINGTON, DC - Today, the National Biodiesel Board called on EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to immediately reject the flood of 52 small refinery exemption petitions for compliance years preceding 2019 disclosed today. NBB renewed its request that EPA apply the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit's ruling in Renewable Fuels Association v. EPA to all pending exemption petitions.

Kurt Kovarik, NBB's VP of Federal Affairs, states, "EPA's consideration of small refinery exemption petitions going back to 2011 flies in the face of the recent 10th Circuit decision. By rolling back the clock, there appears to be no length EPA won't go to help refiners undermine the RFS. Make no mistake – this handout to the oil industry comes at the expense of biodiesel producers and soybean farmers across the country, and particularly the Midwest. Allowing these gap filings renders the program completely unpredictable for renewable fuel producers. The agency must immediately reject these petitions to restore confidence that it will abide by the law in administering the RFS."

In a June 1, 2020 letter to Administrator Wheeler, NBB wrote, "EPA's first step upon receiving any petition for a small refinery exemption should be to evaluate its timeliness and validity before transmitting it to the Department of Energy." The letter makes the case that "gap" petitions or resubmissions of previously rejected petitions are inconsistent with the 10th Circuit's ruling.

A copy of NBB's June 1 letter is available for download.

View the small refinery exemption dashboard on the Environmental Protection Agency's website.

Made from an increasingly diverse mix of resources such as recycled cooking oil, soybean oil and animal fats, biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning diesel replacement that can be used in existing diesel engines without modification. It is the nation's first domestically produced, commercially available advanced biofuel. NBB is the U.S. trade association representing the entire biodiesel and renewable diesel value chain, including producers, feedstock suppliers, and fuel distributors.

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For more about biodiesel, visit www.biodiesel.org.