The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to take a new approach to reviewing small refinery exemption requests amid litigation over previous denials, according to federal court filings.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam R.F. Gustafson told a D.C. appeals court that he has been advised that "EPA has now developed a new approach for reviewing small refinery exemptions and that EPA’s current intention is to issue decisions on the small refinery exemption petitions before it, as well as those that are in litigation, including the exemption petition underlying the denial in this case.”
Litigation over EPA small refinery exemption decisions has been a constant presence in the last decade. The agency in 2022 reversed 36 exemptions granted by the Trump administration in 2018 following a court decision remanding the applications to the agency. Then last year, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned several of the agency’s 2022 decisions denying requests for small refinery exemptions.
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A Bloomberg report suggests EPA could rule on pending petitions “as soon as this week.” Currently, 195 petitions are pending, according to EPA data.
American Coalition for Ethanol CEO Brian Jennings told ethanol industry members at the group’s annual meeting in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, on Thursday that EPA officials will “probably find themselves back in court again no matter what they do" with the pending waiver requests.
“I think we’re finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel in terms of what the future of small refinery exemptions in the RFS looks like and that’s very positive, but we still have some of this unfortunate history that we’re going to have to deal with here in the coming days and weeks,” Jennings said.
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