Over the past 15 years with the Renewable Fuel Standard, regulatory challenges, including small refinery waivers, have been a challenge. Renewable Fuels Association CEO Geoff Cooper says it would be insane for the Department of Energy to recommend approval for retroactive small refinery exemptions. “If refiners experienced hardship in 2012 or 2013 and didn’t ask for an exemption back then, how in the world can they now go back to the DOE and the EPA and claim hardship? It doesn’t make sense.” Al-Corn Clean Fuel CEO Randy Doyal says these exemptions put pressure on Minnesota’s ethanol plants. “We’ve got plants that are closed, throttled back and we’ve got a lot of farmers who have invested money that haven’t seen a return. It’s laughable to me the DOE can decide that refiners, making millions of dollars, have suffered a hardship. They’re trying to put us out of business.”
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