Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and House lawmakers upped the pressure on President Trump to make a decision soon on a way to save oil refineries from the costs of meeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s ethanol mandate.
“The president can solve this with the stroke of a pen,” the Texas Republican said Thursday afternoon, joined by refinery workers and the steelworkers union. “It is the EPA that can do it,” but Trump must direct it to do so, he added.
Cruz’s “win-win” solution would place a cap on the cost of renewable identification number credits that independent refiners must buy to comply with the Renewable Fuel Standard’s ethanol mandate.
The “Washington swamp” doesn’t want to help, he said. “Washington lobbyists are pushing back hard,” and the “swamp is trying with all its might” to stop the solution.
The power is in Trump’s hands, he said. “The president can solve these problems, the president can save these jobs,” Cruz said.
Cruz was asked if the small refinery exemptions that the EPA is approving constitutes the administration implementing a policy equal to what he wants Trump to implement.
“There is a win-win solution,” but “nothing has been announced yet,” Cruz replied at a rally with workers on Capitol Hill.
Cruz’s spokeswoman Catherine Frazier later clarified: “No, the [small refinery] waivers are not a solution, we need to determine policy that’s consistent across the board, not pick winners and losers.”
While the rally was being held, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt told Congress that he has granted 30 “hardship” waivers exempting small refiners from the RFS requirements. The ethanol industry said the exemptions are illegal because they arbitrarily reduced the amount of biofuel required to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply by 1.6 billion gallons. They argue that any change in the fuel volumes must be publicly vetted before taking effect.
The exemptions also were given to large refinery companies that own small fuel producers, which the ethanol groups say runs contrary to the EPA’s legal authority.
Top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said it was Congress’ purview, not Pruitt’s, to set policy on the RFS and that the refiners’ woes are being worked out in a draft bill being hashed out in the committee.
But Cruz chided the House lawmakers, calling their legislative efforts “fairy dust” compared to the immediate need for a fix to save refinery jobs.
He said the House lawmakers, which include energy committee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., are naive to say legislation is a solution. “We don’t have 60 votes” in the Senate, said Cruz, explaining that any bill in the House will surely die in the Senate.
“What they are really saying is ‘do nothing for these guys,’” Cruz said about Walden and other House lawmakers such as Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill. What they are proposing is “magic fairy dust,” Cruz said, adding that legislation would be a “long-term” fix that “doesn’t help anyone here.”
Cruz was joined at the rally by a number of House members, including Rep. Lou Barletta, who is a candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania.
The Keystone State is home of Philadelphia Energy Solutions, the largest refiner on the East Coast, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, blaming the hundreds of millions of dollars it had to spend on ethanol credits to comply with the RFS. The ethanol industry argues that the refiner is an exception to the rest of the industry, and it was poor management and not the RFS that hurt the company.
Barletta said the corn growers have not been willing to come to the table on Cruz’s idea.
“The corn growers need to come to the table and compromise,” Barletta said. He said he talked to Trump recently on Air Force One about the issue and “he clearly understands what this means.”
“The president is working hard to make that happen,” he added. Barletta said he will continue to urge Trump to act, and has begun talking to White House budget chief Mick Mulvaney about the issue. “I am not going to stand by and watch our great workers of Pennsylvania get trampled.”
