A bipartisan group of 16 Senators including half of those from South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota are urging EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to reject 52 recently filed RFS exemption petitions for prior compliance years. National Biodiesel Board’s Paul Winters says if these 52 are allowed to be exempt from the RFS it will cause another 2 billion gallon loss of biofuels.

He says the latest 52 petitions are inconsistent with a 10th Circuit Court ruling issued five months ago.

Winters says even putting these refiner waiver petitions up for consideration violates the court’s earlier decision. He says the EPA’s credibility is at stake if they don’t reject the waiver requests.

Winters says having 8 Republican and 8 Democrat Senators sign onto the letter to the EPA should carry quite a bit of weight in influencing the agency on this issue.