AFPM Testifies on Concerns of the Renewable Fuel Standard and RIN Fraud

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) President Charles T. Drevna testified today before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on renewable identification number (RIN) fraud and efforts by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ensure market integrity in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Program.

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Drevna said that although industry has recently been engaged in productive discussions with EPA, biofuel producers and other stakeholders to attempt to resolve the situation, EPA has failed to embrace a solution. Drevna said:

"The reality is that the EPA is failing to ensure market integrity in the Renewable Fuel Program, and the RFS is failing American consumers. Rather than focusing its efforts on creating a program that will help prevent biodiesel producers from committing RIN fraud in the future, EPA has chosen to sit back and rely upon a 'buyer beware' enforcement scheme that penalizes the victims of fraud."

To date, U.S. refiners have unknowingly purchased 140 million fraudulent renewable identification numbers and paid approximately $200 million in RIN replacement costs. Refiners, as the victims of fraud, have borne the costs associated with settlement agreements and accompanying fines placed on them by the EPA for unknowingly purchasing fraudulent RINs.

Drevna continued, "The current system needs to be fixed to avoid the continuation of fraud and unnecessary costs to consumers. In order to comply with the RFS without penalty, the system to purchase RINs must work. Currently, it does not and refiners must exist in an environment of uncertainty and risk, confounding their ability to comply with the law."

AFPM, the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (formerly known as NPRA, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association) is a trade association representing high-tech American manufacturers of virtually the entire U.S. supply of gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, other fuels and home heating oil, as well as the petrochemicals used as building blocks for thousands of vital products in daily life. AFPM members make modern life possible and keep America moving and growing as they meet the needs of our nation and local communities, strengthen economic and national security, and support 2 million American jobs.

SOURCE American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers