Republican Senator Chuck Grassley is blasting the Trump Administration for granting more ethanol waivers to the oil industry, just before Joe Biden became president.
“What we saw in the final hours of the Trump Administration was a disgrace to the biofuels community,” Grassley told reporters.
A federal court already has temporarily blocked the three waivers Trump’s EPA granted to small refineries, excusing them from the requirement to blend ethanol into gasoline. Grassley said the waivers are part of a flawed system.
“One of the problems we’ve had with how that program’s administered is there’s not enough transparency in it,” Grassley said.
Due to the way the EPA has run the program, it’s still not clear which refineries were granted these last-minute waivers. Republican Joni Ernst, Iowa’s other U.S. Senator, issued a written statement about the last-minute Trump Administration waivers from ethanol blending requirements.
“I’m disappointed that on his way out the door EPA Administrator Wheeler decided to grant three more harmful, so-called small refinery exemptions,” Ernst said. “Iowans are demanding the new administration uphold the RFS and finalize the new proposed rule to grant more access to E15.”