Small Refinery Exemptions (SREs) are back in the spotlight. As we reported in January, the 10th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals in Denver ruled that EPA went beyond its authority in granting three different small refinery exemptions (SREs) in 2016 and 2017 in a decision on a case brought by a number of producer and biofuels groups. This case was filed in 2018. At the time, the Court ruled that none of the three refineries consistently received an SRE prior to their 2016 exemption petitions, so therefore the EPA had exceeded its authority to grant extensions of the SREs “because there was nothing to extend.”  At the time of the ruling, there were 21 pending SRE petitions – all for the 2019 compliance year. Ther...