EPA Only Grants Exemption to One Refinery, Won't Say Which One

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted one the nation’s 143 oil refineries an exemption from costly ethanol blending requirements but refuses to say which one or why citing “confidentiality restrictions,” reports the Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley A. Strassel.

Page 11 of the EPA’s 89-page ruling states that the “EPA has approved a single small refinery/small refiner exemption for 2013, so an adjustment has been made to the standards to account for this exemption.”

Strassel says the EPA not only left out the refiner’s name in its ruling but also “obscured certain numbers in the document to hide the beneficiary’s identity.” When she asked an EPA spokesperson for comment, they declined. As Strassel points out, “an exemption from today’s mandate is far more than a perk–it is a lifeline, an outright payday.”

Whether the EPA will reveal the name of its mystery exemption recipient remains unclear. However, the Obama Administration’s penchant for extending lucrative exemptions and contracts to its cronies is well documented.

As Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer revealed in his bestselling book, Throw Them All Out, 80% of the Department of Energy’s $20.5 billion green energy loans went to President Obama’s top donors.

In 2009, President Barack Obama, speaking about allocations of his so-called “stimulus” plan, promised that federal cash would be doled out in a fair, nonpartisan way.

“Let me repeat that: decisions about how Recovery money will be spent will be based on the merits. They will not be made as a way of doing favors for lobbyists,” said Obama.