EPA Weighing Help for Small Refineries Amid Fuel Demand Drop

The EPA is considering ways to help small refineries required to mix biofuels into gasoline as the coronavirus crushes fuel demand, agency chief Andrew Wheeler told senators Wednesday.

• Wheeler said he had personally spoken with a number of small refineries, and “we are working with them to see what we can do to help them during this time”
  • Wheeler described a “double hit” to small refineries from a federal court ruling undercutting EPA’s ability to exempt them from biofuel-blending mandates and a “particular hardship” from the “decrease in vehicle miles traveled by Americans”
• “We are looking to see what kind of relief we can provide everyone,” Wheeler said. “The ethanol industry is also hurting as well”
• EPA will consider prior-year applications from refineries whose previous waiver applications were found by a court to have been wrongly denied, Wheeler said
  • NOTE: That could include two Sinclair Refining facilities
• EARLIER: Biofuel Quotas to Get Small Lift Under Draft of EPA Plan

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Washington at jdlouhy1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

Greg Sullivan

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