The Environmental Protection Agency’s renewable fuel program faces a temporary freeze as President Trump’s regulatory chill kicks in this week.
The Trump administration will use that time to review the regulations and decide if any further action is warranted based on an executive order Trump signed after being sworn in as the 45th president on Friday, according to a notice that the EPA’s acting administrator, Catherine McCabe, issued late Monday.
McCabe lists the fuel program among 30 regulations, issued from Oct. 28 to Jan. 17, that Trump has ordered the agency to freeze temporarily by delaying them all by one month.
“The temporary delay in effective dates until March 21, 2017, is necessary to give agency officials the opportunity for further review and consideration of new regulations,” a pre-publication copy of the notice reads. The notice will be published in Thursday’s Federal Register as a final rule.
The ethanol industry downplayed the notice as “simply procedural.”
“It is not expected to affect implementation, enforcement or compliance” with the fuel program, Renewable Fuels Association President Bob Dinneen said.
The notice marks one of the first rules to be issued by the EPA under the Trump administration, corresponding to an executive order the president issued Jan. 20 and a memo sent to all agencies called “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review.”
The EPA issued its last rule for the renewable fuel program in November, setting the annual amount of ethanol and other renewable fuels that refiners must blend into the nation’s gasoline and diesel supplies. The standards typically go into effect in February.
Most of the other 30 regulations that will be delayed pertain to individual state plans that must be filed with the agency, certifying how they will comply with EPA’s national air quality rules for controlling smog and other air pollutants.
