Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds is upset the Environmental Protection Agency on Friday granted 31 more oil refinery exemptions from the Renewable Fuels Standard for 2018. This represents more than 1 billion gallons of additional lost RFS demand and comes after 54 exemptions were given for the prior two years.
She says this goes back on President Trump’s promise to support the ethanol industry and will hurt rural America at the worst possible time.
Reynolds says there is no justification for these oil refineries to be granted these waivers and they continue to demand more transparency in how this decision was made. They were granted against the recommendations of the Department of Energy and against advice of some EPA officials.
The lost gallons from the waivers are also not being reallocated by EPA, which has caused 13 ethanol plants to shut down and others to slow production across the country.
