President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency is taking a step to boost transparency for the country’s ethanol mandate, a move that could draw rare mutual applause from both farmers and oil refiners, reports MRT.
On Thursday, the EPA unveiled a website that tracks prices for Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. It also released data on small refinery exemptions, the waivers that the EPA grants if a company shows that its obligations under the mandate threaten economic harm.
The EPA disclosed the information as part of a new push to boost transparency around the Renewable Fuel Standard and its opaque credit-trading system for tracking refinery compliance with annual biofuel blending quotas.
The effort also seeks to mollify critics of the refinery waivers, including some oil companies that have complained that critical information has been kept secret. Ethanol producers have also raised concerns over whether the agency is too freely handing out the exemptions.
Read the full report here.
