Ethanol Blog

LINCOLN, Neb. (DTN) -- The Trump administration reportedly is considering a plan to address a backlog of small-refinery exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Standard, according to a report from Reuters on Thursday.

During the Biden administration the EPA received a growing number of SRE requests, at last count stood at more than 160.

The Reuters report, backed by three unnamed sources "familiar with the plans," should be considered with a bit of caution. No one in the administration has publicly addressed what if any plans there are for SREs.

If the report is true, it would be consistent with how the first Trump administration handled SREs as more than 80 such exemptions were granted in four years.

When contacted by DTN, EPA Associate Administrator Molly Vaseliou would neither confirm nor deny the Reuters report.

"First it was EPA is both approving and denying hundreds of small-refinery exemptions, now rumors are swirling around how the agency will treat exemptions," Vaseliou said.

"I'm convinced this is coming from people trying to impact RIN (renewable identification numbers) markets and they are succeeding in doing so."

The first Trump administration drew heavy criticism from the ethanol industry and farmers, after then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt routinely granted small-refinery exemptions.

The biofuels industry made claims at the time that the exemptions had essentially wiped-out billions of gallons of biofuels demand, without accounting for the exemptions by requiring other obligated parties to blend more biofuels or buy more RINs.

As has been the case since the creation of the RFS in 2005, the federal government has faced a myriad of legal challenges to its handling of the law.

Small-refinery exemptions most often take center stage in courtroom dramas on the statute.

In March 2025, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that will determine where future lawsuits will be heard in SRE cases, https://www.dtnpf.com/….

From 2007 through 2010, 59 small refineries received waivers. The U.S. Department of Energy then examined the 59 waivers and determined that 24 of them could be extended for another two years.

In 2011 and 2012, the number of exemptions was whittled down to eight, then down to seven in 2015. Then, from 2016 to 2018, the agency granted 85 exemptions.

The Biden administration attempted to reverse some of the exemptions previously granted by Trump.

In April 2022, the EPA revoked 36 SREs granted by the Trump administration for the 2018 compliance year. In June 2022, the EPA announced the denial of 69 exemption requests.

At that time, however, EPA offered most refineries an alternative way to comply with the RFS that wouldn't require the companies to make up for the 1.4 billion gallons of biofuels or compliance credits originally exempted.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, however, vacated the Biden SRE reversals, https://www.dtnpf.com/…

Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com

Follow him on social platform X @DTNeeley

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