Sen. Chuck Grassley on Monday accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt of “undermining” the Renewable Fuel Standard by granting a financial hardship waiver to a refinery owned by Carl Icahn, a billionaire former adviser to President Trump.
“EPA handing out ‘hardship’ waivers to billionaires like Carl Icahn is undermining integrity of the RenewableFuelStandard,” Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a Twitter post. “Pruitt shld live up 2his commitment to midwest senators &support the law/not mess w congressional intent BAILING OUT BILLIONAIRES ISNT HELPING ETHANOL/FARMERS.”
The EPA has granted a financial hardship waiver to Oklahoma-based CVR Energy, owned by Icahn, Reuters reported Monday, as the agency has been granting more waivers to oil refiners recently to avoid meeting the nation’s Renewable Fuel Standard.
The waivers, meant for small refiners, take the companies off the hook for blending ethanol.
Grassley is leading a bipartisan group of farm state senators accusing Pruitt of breaking the law and violating Trump’s commitment to the nation’s ethanol mandate.
“We are writing to you regarding the actions the Environmental Protection Agency has taken to undermine commitments President Trump made on the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) to our constituents,” according to a letter sent this month led by Grassley and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.
“Recent reports indicate dozens of small refiner waivers have been secretly granted to large, multibillion-dollar companies under the guise of the small refinery hardship exemption provision in section 211(o)(9) of the Clean Air Act. This is extremely concerning to us,” the letter stated.
Icahn is under investigation by the Justice Department for trying to change biofuels policy when he was an informal adviser to Trump.
Icahn resigned as special adviser to the president in August because of potential conflicts created by his advisory role.
He pressed the Trump administration to change a requirement that refiners be held responsible for ensuring that corn-based ethanol is mixed into gasoline.
CVR’s push for a waiver comes after it said last week that it expects its costs from complying with the ethanol mandate to fall this year to $80 million from nearly $249 million in 2017, according to the industry news group OPIS. That is down from the $200 million it had projected for the year.
CVR Energy had been denied the exemptions by former President Barack Obama’s administration.
The EPA says it has not changed its criteria to grant waivers.
“The criteria used to grant waivers has not changed since previous administrations. EPA follows a long-standing, objectively determined process where the agency uses a Department of Energy analysis to inform decisions about refiner exemptions/waivers, for refineries that are below the statutory threshold,” said Jahan Wilcox, EPA spokesman, in a statement. “EPA decisions on waivers are based on refinery-specific information that is subject to confidential business information protections.”
EPA says that it has granted at least 30 waivers under Pruitt’s watch, but hasn’t disclosed the recipients.
Grassley gave Pruitt a May 1 deadline to provide justification for approving each of the waivers it has given.
Under Obama, the EPA granted about eight waivers annually.
