Comments by current Energy Undersecretary Mark Menezes during his confirmation hearing for the post of Deputy Energy Secretary have raised new concerns about small refinery exemptions (SREs). Menezes was asked if the DOE would consider past year applications for SREs.
This appears to be an effort to address the 10th Circuit Court ruling which said that invalidated three SREs issued for the 2016 compliance year on the basis that they had to have requested SREs in years following 2010. “I can assure that as EPA sends over these … filings if you will to be consistent with the 10th Circuit decision,” Menezes said. “We will review them expeditiously and we will return them as promptly as we can to the EPA with our determinations as we have done in the past.”
The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) has decried the situation, telling EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler in a letter that the effort amounted to an “end run” that was not consistent with the court ruling.
RFA President Geoff Cooper said the apparent effort is a “thinly veiled attempt to circumvent the 10th Circuit’s decision” by retroactively seeking exemptions to establish a continuous string of SREs and thus maintain the refiners’ eligibility for SREs in subsequent compliance years.
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