When Congress created the Renewable Fuel Standard, the intent was clear. The RFS was supposed to build a market for American-grown biofuels and support domestic energy security. Today, EPA wants to deviate wildly from this course. Instead of maintaining the RFS as a program for liquid transportation biofuels, EPA’s RFS proposal for 2023 to 2025 would begin transforming the RFS into yet another huge government subsidy for electric vehicles.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – A bipartisan group of governors from Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming have petitioned EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler to exercise his agency’s general waiver authority to waive Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance burdens for the year 2020 due to the experience of severe economic hardship throughout the refining industry and nationally amid COVID-19.
All eyes are on Hurricane Ian, which is expected to approach Florida’s west coast later Wednesday and into Thursday bringing high winds and massive amounts of rain. Although our nation’s refiners and petrochemical manufacturers do not have facilities in the affected region, we’d like to urge the people in the area to prepare for the storm and heed all evacuation notices. Florida residents can get critical preparedness and evacuation information here .
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted its Advanced Clean Cars II (ACCII) regulation. ACCII requires 35% of light-duty vehicle sales to qualify as “zero emission” by 2026 and 100% by 2035. Essentially, this amounts to a ban on new sales of traditional gasoline and diesel-powered cars and trucks. To implement the policy, California will need a Clean Air Act waiver from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). If EPA grants the waiver, millions of Americans—including many outside of California—could lose the option to buy the car or truck THEY want.
Nine U.S. senators today called on the administration to uphold the law and ensure that qualified small refineries continue to have protection from disproportionate economic hardship brought on by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS).
America’s refiners and motor gasoline suppliers are facing an unprecedented inventory management challenge as the national response to COVID-19 has reduced domestic demand for fuel.
Visit AFPM’s Hurricane and Weather Event Resource Center for more information on steps being taken to ensure the safety of our members’ facilities, their employees and the communities that surround them.
Publicly owned companies, like many U.S. refineries, have a fiduciary responsibility (which is a legal obligation) to act in the best interest of their shareholders, and that extends to how companies spend their earnings. Often, earnings are spent on a combination of the following: direct dividends, stock buy back programs, paying down debt and capital investment projects.
Alongside the publication of AFPM’s new study, “The Fuel & Petrochemical Supply Chains: Moving the Fuels & Products That Power Progress,” Flash Point interviewed leaders working on U.S. midstream infrastructure issues.