- Valero Energy (VLO +3.2%) files lawsuits against the EPA over the agency's latest Renewable Fuel Standard plans, in an effort to alter the policy designed to boost use of renewables in transportation fuels.
- In November, the EPA set 2014-16 targets for biofuel use below a plan laid out by Congress, the first time the regulator used a "general waiver authority" to lower the volumes, acknowledging the blend wall that oil companies say is the saturation point for use of ethanol in gasoline without a major overhaul at fuel pumps and in vehicles.
- "If EPA is going to use an extraordinary action like a waiver, then at least EPA must remove any structural impediments that prevent penetration of renewable fuels," according to VLO's counsel.
- VLO is the U.S.'s no. 1 refiner and no. 3 ethanol producer, and has long sought to move the responsibility of complying with the program further downstream.