Small Refinery Exemptions

The Environmental Protection Agency’s “RFS Small Refinery Exemptions (SREs)” dashboard shows 62 pending exemptions at the end of August.  Three new petitions were received during the past month for calendar year 2020. There are five gap-year petitions that remain on the books for years 2011 through 2018: one for 2016, one for 2017, and three of 2019. There are 30 petitions for 2019, 26 petitions for 2020, and one received so far for 2021.

Under EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, a small refinery may be granted a temporary exemption from its annual Renewable Volume Obligations (RVOs) if it can demonstrate that compliance with the RVOs would cause the refinery to suffer disproportionate economic hardship.

Section 211(o)(9)(A)(i) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) and 40 CFR 80.1441(a)(1) exempted small refineries from the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program through compliance year 2010….