Federal environmental regulators have joined a parade of parties staking claims on the bankrupt Philadelphia Energy Solutions refining complex, whose sale and reorganization are in the final, frantic stages of negotiation before a scheduled confirmation hearing next week, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday filed a “protective objection” to assure that the reorganization plan contains language that adequately protects the government’s interests. Its filing is primarily aimed at preserving EPA’s claims for millions of dollars of unpaid renewable energy credits that it says PES owes the government. The plan that PES submitted to the court last month poses an “unacceptable risk” that the refinery’s obligations to pay for ethanol credits, known as Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs, will go unpaid before the company’s assets are liquidated. About ten parties have so far submitted objections to the reorganization plan, complicating a final resolution. Many of the objections are efforts by parties to get priority over claimants when the refinery’s assets are divvied up. A confirmation hearing was pushed back to Feb. 12 before Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross in Wilmington, Del.
