Sioux Falls, SD - The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) CEO Brian Jennings issued the following statement after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved five small refinery exemption (SRE) requests that were pending from the 2017 compliance year under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), making the total number of SREs for 2016 and 2017 more than 50 with 2.61 billion gallons of blending obligations waived:
"On National Agriculture Day, as farmers are long-suffering from lost market opportunities and low prices, and many farmer-owned ethanol plants across rural America are considering whether to suspend operations or sell out to a bigger company because of limited demand here at home, EPA has further depressed demand for ethanol by rubber stamping five more Small Refinery Exemptions for 2017, and done so without reallocating the blending obligations to other refiners.
"Any benefit of selling E15 year-round will be wiped-out until and unless EPA gets back to the rule of law when it comes to these refinery waivers under the Renewable Fuel Standard.
"That's why ACE has joined with others to petition EPA to reallocate waived gallons and to litigate certain SREs in court."
For more information, please contact Katie Fletcher at 605-306-6107.