25-05-2012

AFPM criticizes EPA’s decision to continue advancing phantom fuel mandate

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) responded today to the Environmental Protection Agency's May 22 decision to continue mandating cellulosic biofuels that do not exist.

"EPA's decision is arbitrary and capricious. We fail to understand how EPA can maintain a requirement to purchase a type of fuel that simply doesn't exist. Congress created a waiver provision in the RFS to address this exact situation," said AFPM President Charles T. Drevna. "If EPA isn't going to grant a waiver based on the agency's own data that shows the fuel is not available, when does the agency think it is appropriate to exercise its waiver authority? Today's ruling simply upholds EPA's imposition of a backdoor gasoline tax on American consumers."

The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, American Petroleum Institute and Western States Petroleum Association jointly filed a petition on January 20, 2012, requesting that the Environmental Protection Agency waive the 2011 cellulosic biofuel volume mandate in its entirety due to a non-existent domestic supply of the fuel. EPA denied this petition on Tuesday, even though the Agency's own monthly summary of available volumes of cellulosic biofuels showsthat no cellulosic biofuel was produced in the United States in 2011.

The volume of cellulosic biofuels that refiners were required to use in for 2011was 6 million gallons. Even though no cellulosic biofuels were produced, refiners were forced to pay $6.8 million to EPA for waiver credits needed to comply with the mandate. AFPM and API also sent a petition to EPA in February 2011 to reconsider that mandate, but EPA waited 15 months to deny that petition as well.