EPA Denies Backlogged Waivers; Soybean Growers Seek Ongoing RFS Support

Washington, D.C., April 8, 2022. Soybean farmers in the U.S. announce close to three dozen small refinery exemptions (SRE) granted by the previous administration in 2019 and later remanded by the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. back to the Environmental Protection Agency have been denied.

Brad Doyle, American Soybean Association president and soybean grower from Weiner, AR, commented on behalf of ASA, saying, “We appreciate EPA denying these waivers from 2018.

"While we wish the SRE petitions were resolved sooner, we are very glad EPA is working to remove the backlog of pending waiver requests and is requiring refineries to comply with more stringent hardship and economic impact reporting requirements.”

While the announcement is on face value positive, EPA is allowing an alternative option for the 31 refineries impacted to meet their new 2018 compliance obligation without any further need to procure or redeem additional compliance credits.

Those 31 SREs represent roughly 1.3 billion gallons of biofuels, demonstrating that SRE volumes can quickly add up and risk undermining the integrity of the RFS--and why EPA continuing to deny waivers is important to the biofuels industry.

The agency is still wading through 69 pending SRE requests from refineries dating from 2016 to 2021. The Biden administration is also working to finalize renewable volume obligations under the RFS for 2020, 2021, and 2022 by this summer.