REX - The Trump Administration Reverses Course And Sides With Refiners On Small Refinery Exemptions
As if the COVID-19 outbreak wasn't bad enough, now U.S. ethanol producers are facing the comeback of an old headwind as well: the opposition of the Trump administration. In January a federal appellate court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] had overstepped its bounds with its vastly-expanded allocation of small refiner exemptions [SRE], also known as "hardship waivers", to refiners both large and small. At the time it was reported that the Trump administration intended to reduce its future allocations in response. This prompted a flurry of White House lobbying by the Congressional