The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday published updated small refinery exemption (SRE) data showing that it had approved three new SRE petitions. One petition was for Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) compliance year 2018 and two were for compliance year 2019.
The RFS requires that obligated parties, which include refiners that produce gasoline or diesel fuel and importers of gasoline or diesel fuel, blend a certain number of gallons of ethanol and other biofuels into the national fuel supply. In the process, obligated parties obtain Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) to show EPA that appropriate blending occurred. Obligated parties also have the option to purchase RINs to show compliance. Small refinery exemptions are petitions that small refiners can file with the EPA to be exempted from their blending requirements under the RFS. Such refiners need to cite economic hardship caused by the blending obligations in order to obtain a waiver.
The 2018 compliance year petition EPA approved accounts for roughly 110 million RINs or approximately one billion gallons of gasoline and diesel that will be exempted from RFS blending obligations. The two 2019 compliance year SRE petitions combined account for roughly 150 million RINs or 1.39 billion gallons of gasoline and diesel that are exempted from RFS blending obligations.
As of January 19th, 65 SRE petitions are currently pending, including two for compliance year 2011, two for compliance year 2012, three for compliance year 2013, four for compliance year 2014, three for compliance year 2015, two for compliance year 2016, one for compliance year 2017, three for compliance year 2018, 30 for compliance year 2019 and 15 for compliance year 2020.
The Renewable Fuels Association on Tuesday filed an emergency motion in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for the court to issue a stay to EPA, temporarily preventing it from further processing the waivers. The D.C. Circuit on Thursday issued an order granting an administrative stay “pending further order of the court” regarding RFA’s emergency motion. EPA has until February 3rd to respond to the stay.
