The RFS allows small refiners to request exemptions from the program’s fuel blending obligations if they can demonstrate to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that compliance with the RFS would impose a “disproportionate economic hardship.” EPA has denied several of these requests over the past few years, reflecting numerous well-established analyses that have shown that refineries nearly always recoup their RFS compliance costs. However, in November, the Fifth Circuit sided with a group of six refineries, ruling that EPA improperly denied their SRE requests.
