Supreme Court Reverses Appellate Court Decision; SRE’s Petions May Continue Despite Lapse

The U.S. Supreme Court decided on Friday that small refinery exemptions (SREs) may be applied for despite there being a lapse in time between application years.  In a 6-3 ruling, the court sided with HollyFrontier and CVR Energy and reversed the 10^th Circuit Court’s decision that SRE applications need to be continuous from year to year.

In the Supreme Court’s opinion, “when Congress created the renewable fuels program, they required most domestic refiners to blend renewable fuels into the transportation fuels they produce.  Realizing this might create an unreasonable strain on smaller refiners, Congress created a blanket exemption from complying with these standards for small refiners through 2011.”  Congress also directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “extend the exemption under clause (i)” through 2013 if the blending…