The battle between U.S. farm interests and oil-refining advocates such as Carl Icahn is heating up again as the two sides fight over whether the ethanol mandate is to blame for the bankruptcy of the U.S. East Coast’s largest refinery, Bloomberg News reported. Philadelphia Energy Solutions LLC blamed its woes on the cost of complying with the Renewable Fuel Standard when it filed for bankruptcy last month. The refiner said that the biofuel mandate cost it more than $800 million since 2012, and now the industry is seizing on that as fresh evidence that changes to the regulation are urgently needed. The ethanol industry says that the program is working as intended by forcing refiners to invest in infrastructure to comply with the law — a regulation that benefits the sector by making biofuels more widely available. Both sides have circulated memos, including one written by Sen. Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) energy policy staff, as well as analysis to buttress their arguments. While oil interests largely blame the RFS, biofuel proponents say that PES is harmed more by losing affordable access to cheap domestic crude from North Dakota than it is by the biofuel mandate that applies to refineries nationwide.
