Refineries go to battle with oil majors over ethanol
http://www.chron.com/business/energy/article/Refineries-press-ethanol-reform-at-EPA-hearing-11723011.php August 1, 2017
Independent refineries are making another stab at getting the Trump administration to change the rules on how ethanol is mixed into the nation's fuel supply.
At a hearing before the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington on Tuesday lobbyists from Valero and other merchant refining companies will battle gas station chains and integrated oil companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron over a renewable fuel mandate that has made some companies rich and put others on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in so-called RIN credits - short for Renewable Identification Number.
The hearing, part of an annaul review by EPA, comes a week after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the EPA was limited in its authority to amend the so-called ethanol mandate passed by Congress a decade ago.
That could drive the EPA to raise the mandate on how much ethanol and other biofuels are blended into the fuel supply, a blow to demand for refineries turning out gasoline. But there was a silver lining to the ruling, said Scott Segal, an attorney for Valero. Segal and Carl Icahn, the activist investor close with President Donald Trump, are arguing for shifting responsibility for meeting the standard away from refineries to the marketing companies that buy their gasoline and blend it for sale at gas stations.
"The court told EPA to reach a conclusion addressing the point of obligation," Segal said said in a copy of his testimony released Monday. "Adjusting the point of obligation is relatively easily done and can be accomplished under existing Clean Air Act authority available to the administrator."...
