CLOVERDALE, Ind. — The owners of an Ethanol plant in Cloverdale are placing blame with the EPA for why they must shut down and lay off 50 Hoosiers.

POET Energy, an Ethanol maker based in South Dakota, has informed the state Department of Workforce Development they are will be closing their Cloverdale operation in October. In the notice, POET said it’s thanks to the EPA’s misuse of the Small Refinery Exemption.

The exemption gives smaller crude oil refineries a waiver on fulfilling the federally mandates Renewable Fuel Standard, which states that oil refineries that process less than 75,000 barrels of petroleum a day are exempt from using the minimum requirement of renewable fuels in their product.

But POET accuses the EPA of granting these waivers to larger oil companies, such as ExxonMobil.

According to Inside Indiana Business, the Indiana Corn Growers Association is also critical of EPA’s granting of these waivers, which it says takes billions of gallons of ethanol out of the required levels defined in the RFS.

Indiana is the fifth-largest producer of Ethanol in the United States making more than a billion gallons a year.