According to the 31-page document released by the EPA on the decision, the granted full and partial exemptions account for 5.34 billion Renewable Identification Numbers, or RINs. What’s more, the agency said it has moved away from presuming that all refineries can fully pass RIN costs to consumers and acknowledged that some refineries may face higher RFS compliance costs.
This is a significant change from previous assumptions made by the EPA on the RFS costs.
In addition, the EPA said it was reaffirming a policy to return RINs previously retired for compliance when a small refinery receives an exemption for a prior compliance year.
Under the RFS program, RINs have a two-year window for use, covering the compliance year in which they were generated and the following compliance year.
“Therefore, while 2022 and earlier vintage RINs are not eligible for use to meet the open 2024 compliance obligations or future obligations, these vintage RINs can be used to demonstrate compliance for prior compliance years consistent with their two-year window,” the EPA said.
“Ultimately, this means that the 2022 and earlier vintage RINs will not impact the number of RINs available to meet 2024 and future compliance obligations and are not expected to impact demand for biofuels.”
EPA said it also reaffirmed the policy it set in the first Trump administration in granting partial relief — a 50% exemption — where a small refinery has demonstrated that it faces partial hardship.
“With today’s action, EPA is getting the SRE program back on track with an approach that recognizes some small refineries are impacted more significantly than others and that EPA’s relief should reflect those differences,” the EPA said on Friday.
The U.S. ethanol industry has expressed concern that if the SREs are not handled properly by the agency, the ethanol market could suffer.
According to the EPA’s small-refinery exemption dashboard just ahead of the announcement, the 204 pending exemptions cover 2016 to 2025. That includes two pending in 2016 and one in 2017. There are 38 pending from 2018; 29 from 2019; 30 from 2020; 22 from 2021 and 2023; 19 in 2022; 30 from 2024 and 11 requested in 2025.
Todd Neeley can be reached at todd.neeley@dtn.com
Follow him on social platform X @DTNeeley
(c) Copyright 2025 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.