Two major ethanol advocacy organizations are demanding transparency from the Environmental Protection Agency on the granting of small refinery exemptions from Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) obligations.

The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) and Growth Energy filed a joint lawsuit in federal district court, alleging that EPA and Department of Energy have “improperly denied agency records requested …. under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)”

“Because EPA and DOE both ignored our repeated requests for basic information on the exemptions, we had no choice but to take this legal action,” said RFA President and CEO Bob Dinneen. “America’s ethanol producers, who are experiencing economic hardship because of EPA’s mishandling of the small refiner exemptions, deserve to know what was happening behind the curtain at EPA.”

“EPA should come clean and provide the public with what it deserves – a full accounting of the stark increase in the number of small refinery exemptions it has granted in recent years,” said Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor. “We deserve to know why EPA has supercharged its approvals of these exemptions without reallocating lost gallons and making sure that RFS volumes are met each year.”

Both organizations have submitted several records requests dating back to April 2018 seeking information related to exemptions from the RFS that EPA has granted to small refineries in complete secrecy. EPA and DOE have failed to act within the timeframes required by FOIA and have improperly withheld the requested documents.