NATSO on March 26 sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice outlining the truckstop industry's opposition to a proposed settlement agreement for the bankrupt refinery Philadelphia Energy Solutions. The proposed settlement would absolve the refinery of many of its RIN obligations under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), and represents in many ways the latest iteration of the years-long battle between merchant refiners that strongly oppose the RFS and other segments of the fuels supply chain that have adjusted their business models based on the RFS's incentives.
The bankruptcy settlement is being used by other merchant refiners, such as Valero and PBF Energy, to bolster their arguments to the Trump Administration that the RFS is flawed and needs to be fixed or repealed.
NATSO argued in its letter to DOJ that the proposed settlement would reward a company that has thumbed its nose at the federal government's long-standing objectives for fuels policies in the United States, punish companies that have spent time and money seeking to help the government achieve those objectives, all the while incentivizing and providing a roadmap for other companies to similarly disregard their environmental obligations.
The Trump Administration is continuing to examine various options to strike a "deal" between biofuels groups that strongly support the RFS and merchant refiners that oppose it. NATSO has continuously urged the Administration to avoid striking a deal without Congressional input, as any deal reached solely by the Executive Branch would inevitably be litigated for years, resulting in continuing volatility and uncertainty. President Trump is reportedly close to reaching a final decision as to how he'd like to proceed, but it is unclear at this time what that decision will be.
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