So-called “gap year” petitions for small refinery exemptions (SREs) for previous compliance years are still being reviewed by EPA, and agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in Wisconsin he has questions about some of those petitions.
“One question that I personally have is how can you prove an economic harm in 2012 if you're still in existence today?” Wheeler said during a Wisconsin farm tour. The Department of Energy recently sent its recommendations to EPA. As for the 2021 biofuel and 2022 biodiesel recommendations and the renewable volume obligations, Wheeler said the process of determining those levels remains uncertain.
“People are still not driving as much as previous years, we take that into account when we set the RVO,” said Wheeler. “We're still going through all the data to try to figure out what the impact COVID is going to have on the RVO... Then we also have to look at what the remedy is because the appropriate remedy would not be to give people current year RINS for something from 2012 or 2013.”
He noted EPA did send a package to the Office of Management and Budget for review in May but now said that the entire landscape has changed since then. Wheeler said EPA has been proud to be able to meet the deadline for the RVO proposal the previous three years of the administration but “it does not look like we're going to be on time this year.”
It is not clear why the agency sent the plan to OMB given the uncertainty that Wheeler said exists with COVID-19.
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