statute establishing the renewable fuel standard exempted all small refineries from its requirements for the st years of the program and authorizes them individually to seek extensions of that exemption at any time based on hardship the question here  whether it prohibits e p a from granting a hardship exemption to a small refinery that hasn't been continuously exempt for all prior years respondents claim it does under their view a small refinery can receive exemptions indefinitely but only if it's never able to comply without hardship if there is even one year in which it can comply without hardship it's been disqualified for all future years nothing in the statutes text imposes this unique prohibition respondants argument rests on the word extension which they contend should be read temporally here to mean an increase in the length of time but even if extension is read in its temporal sense that does not require continuity no dictionary defines an extension to require continuity and congress has used the term elsewhere when it's specifically authorizing the temporal resumption of a benefit after a lapse and or congress has wanted to limit the term in the way respondents urge it added limiting words like successive or consecutive which it didn't do here a continuity requirement would also be contrary to the statutes purposes the statutory design is to impose burdens that escalate dramatically over time as the department of energy explained in tw eleven some small refineries will face inherent and disproportionate hardships that will only arise or that will increase as those mandates grow driving those small refineries out of the market would undermine the statutes energy independence goals and that's one of the reasons congress authorized them to petition at any time based on hardship i welcome the court's questions mr tytler under your reading which is extended mean you know you would stand in awe for extend condolences could an entirely new refinery apply for an extension to it a hardship hardship exemption in other words coming o of the scene for the st time they would under your view i think have to ask for an extension yes mr chief justice if the court adopted the make available meaning of extension then yes completely new refinery that came into existence after the initial period would still be able to seek an extension of the exemption but the court could also construe extension in the temporal sense without requiring continuity and in that case it certainly arguable that a new entrant would not be able to get an extension of the initial exemption because it didn't have one without there being any requirement that the extensions have been continuously enjoyed by others which of those two reading extension i gives to each one of which you embrace do you think is the right one if we were forced to choose your honor we would acknowledge that reading extension in that temporal sense without continuity would enable the court to avoid having to whether this is one of those instances in which the same word has different meanings within the same statute and so for that reason perhaps that might be a preferred reading but even in that circumstance our key point would be that even the tempora meaning of extension does not require continuity congress has used it in exactly the other way multiple times and no dictionary says that the temporal meaning of extension requires continuity when seems like you're sort of any port in the storm reading of this statute and i'm not sure that i'm not sure that's the strongest position well then your honor we would be happy to rely on the other construction of extension as well because extension is often used when there is some preexisting status separately authorized benefit and it is being extended or made available to a different setting or time period or set of recipients just and fifteen when congress and acted what it called an extension of privacy act remedies to citizens of certain foreign countries it is a word that congress often use when it is enlarging or extending the scope of a preexisting benefit and we'd of course be happy with that reading here as well our principal point is that there is no basis under either reading to impute a continuity requirement to the work so this really is a freestanding exemption and in your view and i wonder i'm not saying it's an inconceivable construction but is this the way you might expect if congress were going to provide a freestanding exemption that they would do it in this sort of roundabout way i don't think it's all that round about mr chief justice st of all instead paragraph b three that is exactly how congress referred to this referred to the same petition and the same relief as simply a hardship exemption it omitted the word extension entirely which we think weighs strongly against respondents effort to ascribe such a transformative meaning to that single word in addition this is a statute in which the obligations as said intensified dramatically over time and it seems implausible to think that congress meant that merely being able to comply for one year in the early years of the program would mean that a small refinery would never ward hardship relief ever again council ice i think you would agree that there's no chevron deference issue here because the agency has changed its position is not right well i don't agree with that your honor although of course we think the statute should be construed the way we urge without regard to chevron we do think that there is deference here because e p a adopted this interpretation in a notice and comment rule making in two thousand and fourteen and it hasn't changed that rule when the agency doesn't abide by the same position are you saying you didn't do that through notice and comment well that's part of it your honor but it's also the fact that these are agency adjudications we filed our titian's under the existing rules and that rule has the force of law if it's lawful the chief justice has covered most of the ground i was interested in but i am interested in it for you to prevail with your reading to be more normal reading  extension or simply one of one possible reading of the word extension i think i would perhaps put in a rd way justice thomas which we think it is the best reading of the word in the context of this particular statute both the other text like the words at any time and the statutory purposes i alluded to anyway earlier even if there was tiebreaker needed we would then say electricity is turned off because i failed to pay a bill and i paid for it is that or i get a reprieve is that an extension or is that a grace period it just seems rather odd to read it way i think this is a word justice thomas that's highly sensitive to context and i think there are certainly some contexts like the one you just mentioned in which one wouldn't think of what we're talking about as an extension but here in the context of government benefits that lapse and then resume congress has specifically used the word extension to describe a so twice because this is been happening recently in light of the pandemic where congress has resurrected benefits programs that had previously lapsed in one case more than six years ago and in each of those cases that we describe in our brief congress resumption of a program that had been lapsed and unavailable in one case for a period of years as an extension of that program so we think the context to focus on here is the one in which congress is acting on benefit programs that have lapsed and their congress has said benefits resumed after a lapse can be an extension in addition as i indicated where it has wanted to limit the word extension to be only continuous it has felt the need to add words like consecutive or successive consecutive extensions or extensions for successive periods and under respondents view all of the many statutes that talk about extensions for successive  i think it's a very important phrase your honor that is the broadest possible temporal language and it is inconsistent we think with any understanding a sub paragraph be that treats it as transitional or temporary or designed to sunset sub paragraphs a caption temporary sub paragraph a filled with time limits and deadlines but congress then broke this petition process out into a separate sub par graph to be lacking in a word temporar lacking all those temporal words and including the broadest possible temporal language at any time and we think what that signifies your honor is that these two sub paragraphs are dealing with two different periods subparagraph a with the initial periods of the program single connected exemption they wanted to phase out the exemptions over time and gradually if this exemption would end this it would become narrow and their interpretation  would there would be fewer and fewer companies that were exempt and that would mean more and more would have to figure out some way of making do with the program and that's what they want  those are the two competing narratives of what is going on here just as prior we have said the provision is meant as a safety valve for when hardship occurs as the demands of the program ratchet up our friends on the other side say it was supposed to be a f l one which actually would funnel some small refineries out of the market to the extent that they couldn't comply and we think there are several reasons why the safety valve and not the funnel metaphor is right here st of all as i mentioned a moment ago this is a statute in which the burdens escalate over time and the petition is supposed to be based on hardship it seems implausible to think that congress would assume that an early ability for a year to comply would mean there would be no need in the future nd the purposes of the statute are all served by our interpretation because congress wanted both to ensure that the volume requirements of blended food fuel are met and that small refineries are protected and e p a now has an approach in which it will slightly increase the applicable percentage to take account for the projected small refinery exemptions in the next year that means that every goal gets served the small refineries get protected and the statutory volumes all get blended but converse lee if the respondents interpretation is adopted you will for some small refineries out of the market which is a kind of contraction of refining capacity that doesn't serve congress's energy independence goals but you wouldn't get a single drop of additional fuel blended and finally the anomalies i referred to in my opening statement similarly situated refineries both facing identical hardship get treated oppositely because one of them several years ago when the statutory demands were lighter is able was able to comply or refinery that is never able to comply without hardship gets exemptions indefinitely because their continuous but the refinery you and the kind of respondents i have different accounts of the purpose of the act but it's always difficult to interpret an act in light of its  respondents say here means i don't know whether that's a wash but both of those are possible the best textual i think you have is the at anytime argument  why isn't that a plausible explanation of its meaning well i think that is certainly one scenario justice alito in which it would be applied but it is a very narrow and specific focus and limitation for the broadest possible temporal language possible you know the th circuit said that well it says you can file it at any time but that doesn't mean it can be granted any time i don't know if it's put that one aside but what about the why so it's it's now a robot it's a possible explanation well i don't think it's a full and sufficient explanation though because under the court of appeals view the ability to file a petition that can be granted ceases once a small refinery has had one good year that's not at any time so it's not simply that respondents have a view that attributes only a very narrow purpose to the broadest possible language it also cuts out some obvious applications of that language when congress has said these petitions can be filed at any time based on hardship let me come back to the question you were talking about with with the chief justice and that is whether doesn't that mean that the refinery must have one under a in order to ask for one hundred b i think that is one reading justice alito but not the only necessary reading if it were that reading all of the refineries here would still get the extension because they all had the initial exemption but with respect to the specific question if one reads extension as make available the way we talk about extensions of credit or extensions of other government benefits then you wouldn't need to have had an exemption under some paragraph a to get an extension of that exemption because as i mentioned earlier extension is often used when there is a preexisting benefit that is then being enlarged with the scope being provided to some new set or new setting and here what that phrase would mean is that the terms of the exemption in sub paragraph a which is where it's defined as the requirements of paragraph two shall not apply the terms of the exemption   think it is limited your honor by phrases like disproportionate economic hardship disproportionate in particular requires the e p a fire to find that the small refinery in question is experiencing some type of disadvantage or hardship that is distinct from simply what anybody else in the market might be experiencing and the reason congress established the separate provisions is that it understood that small refineries have several inherent and structural disadvantages that set them apart and that can in certain circumstances give rise to a level of hardship from compliance here that far exceeds those of the larger competitors justice  sure or clear i thought the circuit below disagreed with your interpretation of what economic hardship means thought the circuit below thought that it meant you had to have a particular hardship relating to blending the fuels or buying the credits am i wrong about that you know you're right justice sotomayor the lower court felt that the e p a had not applied the strict enough causation standard because it took into account both the fact that the market was experiencing a difficult year combined with the individual circumstances of the small refinery and the costs that had to bear in complying so your answer to justice alito basically means that there's still a fight distiller fight there's still a dispute going on below yes your honor there's going to have to be a rematch and even if we prevail here so that the other issues statutes other relief statutes that it's given at different times but let's look at this particular one is there any use of the word extension anywhere in this stat elsewhere in the statu in footnote seven of our reply brief that's the situation in which if there's a feedstock disruption e p a can waive certain requirements for up to sixty days and then east in over three says that in the event that disruption is continuing beyond the expiration of that period it can be extended for up to another additional sixty days e p a certainly doesn't have to make the determination  continuing beyond the initial sixty days a period after it's expired but it certainly can and if it did the extension would be non continuous the other uses of extension in the statute i would acknowledge justice sotomayor are continuous but they're continuous because of features about those provisions because they all involve extensions of an effective date when some requirement will st take effect and of course if an effective date is extended it has to be continuous because otherwise it wouldn't work well conk counsel i guess my biggest problem is that you see in context we should read this differently and you're talking about the two interpretations that the competing interpretations of what the purpose might be of the statute but doesn't the use of the word temporary in the provision at issue suggests the other side's reading more than yours i don't think so your honor because defined say and a is where you get the extension at all yes but i don't think that means it's a pair of b carries over with it every aspect of the paragraph a for example the extensions are going to be of different aeration there are all sorts of different terms about when they will be provided and what conditions will be appended to them so i think we understand sub be linked to sub paragraph a in some respects and billington others it's linked because it is talking about the same relief the same defined exemption from the requirements of the paragraph two but it is dealing because it's not temporary it's at any time one last question on your alternative reading the one that you suggested to the chief justice  if we were to accept that extension doesn't require continuity wouldn't that result in the admin i think you acknowledge that small refineries that came into the scene after two thousand and six could never receive an exemption correct under that reading yes your honor so under that reading basically it is a sunset reading of this provision well i don't think it's a sunset because the provision would continue to be available to everyone who was there when the program started but yes if you knew we came into existence as a small refinery you would be ineligible and for what it's worth e p a in two thousand and sixteen suggested one reason why that might be so it would just get a continuity requirement but it did say that new entrants shouldn't be able to get an extension and they said that was because a new entrant comes into the world knowing this program exists and have planned for it rather than hypothetical suppose that i rented an apartment five years ago and i rented it for a year and then i decided to give it up and five years later i'm now really tired of where i'm living now and i want to move back and i call the landlord and say i'd like an extension of my lease what would the landlord say i think the landlord would scratch your head and think that's a very strange context in which to be using the word extension i agree with that and that i think is like the government's examples of the hotel guests or the people parking their cars i think those may have a different connotation in part because they involve rights official physical occupation and because you go away and you then come back and we think of that as discontinuous and that's why we think the much more apt context here is how congress has used the word in the context of government benefits and programs that existed lapsed and resumed m i mean let's think about it in this particular context so there's a small refinery and and let's say its initial exemption ended in two thousand and eleven and since then it's been able to meet its renewable fuel obligations and indeed still more in keeping with the statutory purpose isn't taxed to permit the small refinery in your honour's example to petition at any time i mean i think we should understand your argument about purpose but i'm just trying to focus on the text here  and i guess i don't know explain that that textual analysis to me well i think it's a couple of things your honor st of all the text says at any time and that will all while the hypothetical is extreme and i think probably highly unlikely it is we think you know less extreme and much more contrary to the text and purpose to say that a refinery which had one good year in two thousand and thirteen when the requirements of the an extension it's a resumption or renewal or a something else but it doesn't seem really like an extension well i think it is an extension your honor in the same way the congress has used extensions in the other contexts i've mentioned and i think that is fortified here by the fact that this extension can be sought at any time and that the relief is described in paragraph b three as simply a hardship exemption without even using the word extension at all we also do know that at any time language mr kaiser and justice alito talked about this too and you know of course that seems very general language but if you look at this provision it's essentially says look you can get your extension by way of the study or then even if you're not identified in the study you can petition for an extension at any time and and you can do that even after the e p a determines the upcoming years geishas and you can do it even after a compliance year so even after the year goes through really and you haven't made it and you're kind of asking for a backwards extension so that's a lot of at any time to give meaning to that to that phrase without distorting the word of extension that without distorting the meaning of the word extension isn't that well i think it is some applications of it any time but it would also be the case that there would be some instances in which the refinery couldn't petition at any time in particular any time after it had one year in which it comply without hardship so i think your honour's interpretation permits them to do it at some times but not at any time and i suppose i would just quarrel with the premise of the question that interpret it any time in its natural way requires a distortion of the meaning of the word extension extension as a word of many meetings and  frequently used in statutes the way we are recommending here and you said frequently but i think your brief only really has these two covert example in it i mean if you would written this brief last year you would have had  well i think the pandemic is what's given rise to the need for congress to resume programs that had previously led labs but it's not just those two examples because we also think it's telling the negative examples we've described in which when congress has wanted to define how do we know that the definition of small refineries will be applied and measured for each calendar year during that st five year period rather than only once when the initial exemption was required well the question didn't come up  post suppose we can't know for certain but the way the statute to find small refinery it says that you have to meet the seventy five thousand barrel daily through put for a calendar year that at least suggests that it was talking about an individual year so a refinery which started out as a small refinery and then in two thousand and ten grew beyond that definition we think wouldn't be a small refinery in two thousand and ten and wouldn't have been entitled to the blanket exemption for that year you know for a fact whether there has ever happened whether that small refineries of some qualified initially and then didn't qualify later or vice versa during that st five year period i don't know whether that happened during the st five year period i do know that refineries have grown and shrunk in general beyond and within that definition during the broader life of the program and as a p a treated them as small refineries during some periods and ot hers well yes because their current regulation in the one that was adopted in their two thousand and fourteen eligibility rules specifically says that the relevant year when a small refinery is applying is the year and for which it's seeking the exemption and the immediately prior year so it wouldn't matter under that regulation whether you were a larger refinery in earlier years as a disavowed that aspect of its regulation not that i know of your honor thank you justice cavanaugh thank  look at other clues from the tax to the statute before we get to the purposes and i'll get to that but before we get to the purposes we look at other clues in the tax than at any time as your heart justice kagan and others  pointed out that you don't necessarily have to read it that way and i just want to get your kind of full understanding of how at any time works here and are there any other textual clues that would tell us whether to read extension as continuous or not requiring continuous i think your honor i think at any time is best read as the most expensive possible temporal language which is meant to ensure that as the it demands of the program escalate the safety valve will be there such that a small refinery that newly experiences hardship can obtain relief at any time and as i said the contrary view really doesn't give at any time the broad  demands because it says that once you've had one good year you're out and that's not at any time and that's why we say that the statute is designed for two different periods a paragraph a for the temporary initial period and  individual ised relief is necessary thereafter as to other textual clues we think there are several st of all there is the contrast in the language when some paragraph a paragraph be one that has the power of a that has temporary and all the eliminated when congress restates the same petition and the same relief which at a minimum says respondents are giving much more weight to it than congress did and finally other textural aspects of the statute this is a statute which textually commands that the burdens will intensify year after year after year and textually says that relief is to be given based on hardship and it does not seem a sensible reconciliation of all these provisions to say that that t and the underlying purpose it indicates would be served by kicking out a small refinery from eligibility for exemption because in one early year of the program it was able to comply without hardship and i understand your argument today to be f cognizant of the fact that the chief justice implied the opposite in his question but i certainly think that the nd argument of voids some of the trickier aspects of the statutory construction analysis because at least means this isn't an example which the court has to decide whether the word extension which we admit is used temporarily in other provisions of the statute is used in a different sense here i want to just focus on how the separation of powers angle fits in with the real world facts of how this program works under the other side's reading congress has a limit in the possibility of an exemption for a small refinery ever in a particular year didn't get it for the point to be if if a smaller finery is having significant economic hardship in a particular year the question is did congress want this is moral purpose argument but did congress one d p a to be able to give an exemption in the new year or did congress want to small past judicial posts what does that affect anything here i think only in the sense that it gives further credence for the reason that congress would want these to be sought at any time because not only does the in understanding disproportionate economic hardship and then it got reversed by a court but all of those small refineries who didn't apply or were denied wrongly would then be out of the program as well so it is extraordinary exemption and other words even if there is not a required continuity of time that there would be some sort of continuity of reason for the exemption well i think certainly any application that it made would have to be factually consistent with representations it made before and it would be painting a picture over time of its economic circumstances so in that sense there would need to be consistency over time but the actual application would focus on what the circumstances of the refinery are view then that would be the way paragraph b three describes it as simply a petition for a hardship exemption but it is also within the meanings of extension that we have described an extension of the exemption under subparagraph a because it is a l of the overall period for which that exemption was in effect and it is also extending in the make available sense that exemption from a into this different setting of a new hardship petition justice kagan gave you an example in which she p seeking an exemption in the year two thousand and thirty you know that this could this at any time language could be stretched pretty far but you know under be it relates back to this and say the two thousand and eight study that the is supposed to conduct to determine whether compliance would create a disproportionate economic hardship on small refineries if there is no continuity of time requirement it seems that the temple connection between the two thousand and eight only about picking the thirteen small refineries that were going to get the additional two year extension more broadly it laid out a whole framework for understanding what the economics of the industry were what the factors were that deal we at least would consider in deciding what to recommend and develop a whole scoring matrix based on capital requirements and financial condition operating margins and things like that that's what e p a and deal we looked to from that study to determine exemptions going forward that doesn't mean e p a couldn't take into account the fact that it took twenty years to file that application and thinking about whether the repertoire presentations were credible and whether the evidence was sufficient let me shift gears and see if there is another provision in the statute feel if it were struggling are still going to be forced out of business that that might harm the economy of our region is that a provision that might help you well we think it's directed to a slightly different circumstance where there needs to be a broader reduction in the applicable requirement that applies to the industry as a whole and there would be harm to a region or a state or the whole country and i think it does help us some because it shows that congress wanted to primitive to be sensitive to these market conditions but the key thing is that the small refinery provisions are the only ones that are geared to an individual company and it's circumstances so the broader authorities don't deal with that problem and the reality is that you administer a program more forcefully overall if you have the ability to exempt the smallest and most marginal players rather than letting the concern about driving them out of the market drives the whole program kaiser thank you mr chief justice i just like to add that respondents interpretation is especially implausible given the structure it would impose my friends say that these provisions stablish only a limited transitional period but they've identified no other statute with a transition period remotely like what they propose here there's no defined end date there's no defined number of years it instead ends on differ and customize dates for each small refinery depending on when that refinery st happens to be able to comply even if it can do so only for one year that's what gives rise to all the anomalies of similarly situated refineries being treated differently and it's especially implausible that the one and only statute which would structure a transition period in this way would be the one in which the demands are designed to increase substantially over time and which authorizes small refineries to seek relief at any time based on hardship you council mr michel mr chief justice that may please the court under the key provision in this case a small refinery may seek an extension of the exemption under sub paragraph if the meaning of that language is straightforward if a small refinery has an exemption under some paragraph today it could obtain an extension of that exemption from e p a but if a small refinery no longer has the exemption it cannot obtain an extension something that does not exist that is the ordinary common sense meaning of the statutory text it gives the word extension the same meaning in adjacent interconnected clauses and it reflects the statutes objective to boost production of clean renewable fuel while providing transition time for small refineries to comply all of the government endorsed petitioners alternative readings below e p a now agree that the th circuit correctly rejected that petitioners st proposed that extension in the key provision means grant but the statutory context forecloses that reading the subject of the extension it issue the exemption under sub paragraph a cannot be granted a new it can only be lengthened in time but just as alternatively contend that extension has a tempore a meaning but allows the extension of an expired exemption that defies the ordinary meaning of extension and common parlance it would be awkward at best to seek an extension of something that has lapsed especially if it were described as temporary simply put if congress wanted to adopt the generally available exemption petitioners advocated it would not have been acted the scheme it did hear back in does not do a small refineries to failure the vast majority of small refineries including petitioners have successfully complied with the r f s in many prior years the staff to create flexibility to facilitate ongoing compliance and other tools exist to address other challenges but the court of appeals correctly  here and its decision should be affirmed mr michel this is a hypothetical rich case everyone's a different scenarios where extender extension is used in different ways you know with if you miss the deadline for a term paper it would be normal language for you to go into the professor and ask for an extension you wouldn't go in and ask for a new deadline  given all of those hypotheticals both along those lines in the other way you're not arguing that this term is plain or unambiguous right the terms you used in your opening was straightforward and ordinary but it's  applied if chevron applied i think that would be correct although i think there are a lot of reasons why chevron doesn't apply starting with the fact that the rule my friends cite does not actually contain any interpretation of the question presented here he's relying at   on an implicit assumption in the preamble to the rule that leads to a position if he no longer has that i don't think there's any case in which the court has granted chevron deference to something like that and you're not arguing for chevron deference going your way either and i would just start with but we think of the ordinary meaning of the term i also think it's highly significant that that's how congress you used the term expand in paragraph a clause to my i think i printed it that  subject to the same entity used at the same standard and expressly cross reference each other if you want to get back to a point justice can all made to the debate here is about whether or not the small refinery can get in the door and other words extension if you look at a two and then b one you know you can actually see the funneling effect it goes from two years to get to an unstated period which he as is considered to be one year and if you look at the other waiver provisions in the the study that it was required to have done by the end of two thousand and eleven or the beginning of two thousand and eleven what if it were delayed and the temporary  deal with those justice thomas yeah that you want to stress the statute the study was completed in time and so all of these extensions under age two were in fact continuous as as a practical matter i think your question really highlights that congress expected them to be continuous as well because the study was due at the end of two thousand and eight the initial exemption extended through the end of two thousand and ten i have to confess i'm not sure i've thought about what would have happened in the hypothetical world of if e p a had not the only had not gotten that study and on time in the initial exemptions had lapsed i do think that would not be the ordinary meaning of extension and then the question would be whether the the context of the statute preclude car or soon car movie thomas i think that there's a definition on page sixty six a court of appeals opinion that does include the word continuity but you know i'm not sure the dictionary is a complete solution here i but what we're relying on really is more what this test circuit called dictionary definitions plus common sense and i think justice kagan's example was a good one there are many others you know i think if you were at a hotel at a hotel on vacation and they said you could extend your stay for a discounted rate and you said well great we'll come back in three years i think they would say pass not what we mean by an extension i think that's by far the more natural understanding of the term in common parl related provision in the statute and it requires both to poor extension and continuity thank you notes just prior to your morning i mean you talk about common sense and this is a marketable rights program isn't it is and they sell the rights to pollute more of it you know use less as an oil in the marketplace as i read it it's a classical such program characteristic of such program compared to tax with a tax you know the price but you don't know the amounts marketable rights you know the amounts but you don't know the price and i think anybody would have knowledgeable would have thought that from what i've read here and so no one would know if we go on two or three years which small refineries will find hardship and which won't in july change from year to year or two years to two years and it would be to me a very peculiar statute which  gave rights in such a way that when it changes as it will change all the time in and out in and out in and out and they don't know who they're giving it to and they don't know when they'll qualify and they might qualify time a in time b and so from the point of view of a marketable rights program your interpretation seems to turn it into a kind of chaos now what do you say but it is right i don't think there's chaos here there was of course complete clarity that the blanket exemption was  qualify or it goes down fifty percent and then those are the ones who have been getting it are out because they're not in hardship anymore i mean that's normally the way such a program works maybe it didn't work that way here but you're the one who would know which is why i bring it up but just prior to the couple of points i think you know congress wanted to create a freely available exemption that would serve the purposes you just described it wouldn't done what it seven that was that section that just disparaged mention to my friend at the end of his argument that allows for a freestanding waiver of the volume requirements and congress instead took a much more rounded out path here by creating the initial blanket exemption and providing for a is that roundabout as you read it i understand you read it but it seems to me paragraph one a one could be read as follows temporary exemption the over acquirements of paragraph requirement which  don't well tell me why the skeins and that you're proposing is one that congress with think is sensible if a small refinery is able to comply for a number of years but then refinery to be forced out of business so just as well you know you want to make clear that we don't think they'll be forced out of business and i mean that's an important point because that would really raise the stakes beyond where they actually are and i also think it's important to know that he has long standing position is that a refinery can recover the cost of compliance through this or in program i think but even if you did you didn't accept either one of those at the end of the day this is a statute that aimed at transforming the fuel supply and ultimately it is necessary to bring all of the small refineries into compliance that's after all i think what congress meant by a temporary exemption that can be extended only under certain circumstances so you a provision i think it's in some ways a particularly generous sunset provision that in that the five years is the only clear sign sad after two thousand and eleven but then small refineries that can show they need it for longer can't keep it for longer than the old met result is i think something of a sunset but that's exactly what you would expect from a temporary exemption well if it's a sunset provision is a rather strange type of sunset provision i've never seen the sunset provision like this well i don't think it's a sunset provision in those terms but there are other areas of the law where someone can continue to receive exemptions are extensions of a particular stash visas for example you can come into the country on a visa and continue to extend it and you might say that that's a sort of sunset program in the sense that once you no longer can continue to obtain the extensions you're sunset it then it will happen at different times for different people and i don't think it's a particularly unusual concept there is a pretty good look at what e p a looks at it's a wide variety of financial information but ultimately it's geared toward determining whether the small refinery has disproportionate economic hardship congress or committees of congress that said in pretty clear terms they wanted more extensions the exemption and e p a i think complied with that and it took this litigation which was the st litigation presenting this f s program the vast majority of small refineries have complied from for many years including petitioners in this case and that includes years in which they have sought hardship relief under this provision and had it denied e p a denied about eighteen petitions between twenty million one hundred and thirty two thousand and fifteen as far as we know only one small refinery went out of business after that and it's also notable that other refineries that don't fall underneath the seventy five thousand dollars barrels per day threshold that's in the statutory definition for small refineries have complied all the way back to two thousand and six and that's true even of refineries that have eighty million ninety thousand you know throughput that's not all that different and that doesn't really present qualitatively different economics than than the refineries face here and finally there is flexibility built into the r f s program as we've mentioned there are waiver authorities just disparate cited one there's also an important provision in five d that allows a other provisions that help refineries including small refineries and getting special access to oil from federal lands and of course we are sensitive to the cold related hardships that small refineries are suffering but the federal government has has expended a lot of conversation with justice breyer i mean it strikes me that there are two possible way is to conceive of the congressional purpose here and one is supposed to kaiser is way which is that it is supposed to be a safety valve that's supposed to allow small refineries that are having difficulty in any given year might be this year it might be ten years from now to have a way out and the alternative story is the one that you just suggested which is that this is really conduct  supposed to be that refineries change their methods of proceeding and get into compliance at some point so how do we choose between those two different way is an understanding what congress is purpose is year applies to all small refineries a one a two applies to just the category of refineries identified by the always study and be won his case by case so i think if you read the statute that way it did sort of and executive background makes it clear the statute was in aggregate a time when the united states was dependent on foreign oil and congress and the president thought it was important to to reduce that dependence for national city economic and environmental reasons a which might shed some light on whether we think there's a continuity requirement and b is he correct that it would be possible would have been possible for a small refinery to receive an initial two year exemption or extend exemption and two thousand and eight fall out of lose that exemption in two thousand and ten but then regained it in two thousand and eleven is not correct as a factual matter justice gorsuch  interpret it the way they did the fact that we're looking at different years at least doesn't at least open the possibility that there might be people falling in and out of the small refinery definition even under the period of cover by applied chevron but you're asking us not to do so here right right because i think there's nothing to defer to in that there is no agency interpretation of the question presented that you could gran keiser nd argument is pretty good which is this legal argument today the argument that the extension the word extension is temporal but does not have to be continuous just to set up how i'm thinking about this and then get your response you admit it's not in and the u s word i think congress hughes's extension sometimes even when something's lapsed we have the examples coded in other examples you make a big deal that ordinary usage but i'll give you three instances in my life for ordinary usage goes the other way from what you use and what you say so sometimes when you're teaching and you have a five o'clock pm due date for a paper you know what after the due date you will get a email entitled extension requests you granted a paper extension afterwards or one day's use a sports contract example in your brief but often times of the contract ends at the end of the season and the off season the player signs a new contract that will be described by most people as player extends for two more years or if you let your print newspaper subscription lapse for a time and then you started up again you'll tell your family member or friend oh i extended the paper subscription so i think ordinary usage also like congressional usage that in my experience of least doesn't tell us exactly so how do we break this and the two things he emphasizes are at any time and that there is no sunset date so i want to get your responses to that and then also on the purpose and context if we get to that to help break what i want to say todd to figure out what congress was thinking about what the word more what it was doing with the word extension your position is that congress one is small font refineries to have no idea what it all to essentially go out of business whereas the other side's position is simply  as a matter separation of powers authority to grant an exemption it's a small refinery had had a had a problem and it's really seems quite implausible to think congress wanted refineries in that circumstance to go out of business that i think at any time means exactly what it sets which is that a small refinery can ask for an extension of the exemption at any time but that doesn't define what an extension of the exemption is so in justice kagan's example i think  renter originally had to leave that said you can extend your lease at any time i don't think you would want to come back five years later and ask for an extension i think as my friend said the landlord would still scratches or her head so i think although i t contact i think if you thought they were going to go out of business this would be a tougher tests if they haven't gone out of business in the past when many smaller fineries have complied but of course you know that the purpose of this program was to drive change ambiguous you said a couple of times that the word extension is ambiguous and i would have thought that i mean it does have several definitions which we've got over there an argument in the briefs if you look in the dictionary but in the context of this statute it's clear which of those definitions are reasonably clear that there's a better and occasion of which of those definitions is the right one and i understand your argument cor correct because you know we're here we're arguing back and forth about what it might mean but i don't think you mean to say that we could not glean which way in which congress was using the word extension when we look at the context cr ok and as for congress plausibly intending to send a small refineries out of business is it possible that congress just didn't anticipate that they wouldn't be able to comply that it just grossly underestimated how easy it system small refineries are able to recover the full cost of their compliance because the marginal cost of our compliance is is priced into the market price for refined fuels now i'm not saying that congress necessarily would have known that at the time but  it's turned out there's very little risk of going out of business because of the way the program has been well but they say that they're then at the mercy of the rand market and it can be very expensive but putting that aside let's just posit that you know just this cabin i was saying is right that you reading would drive smaller fire is out of the market which way should that i mean because if we think that congress might not have anticipated that at the time what are we to make of that so i think you know congress of course included a number of provisions that added flexibility that would keep small refineries from going out of business but i do want to get your question directly i suppose if at the end of the day fifteen years later there were one or two small refineries that couldn't comply because they couldn't find a way after fifteen years i think that congress would have accepted that outcome because it was trying to change the fuel supply but i want to stress i don't think that's what's going to happen in part because of the other safeguards that congress wrote into the refineries must have an exemption under sub paragraph but fischer's contrary reading is terror intuitive at best this court typically applies the ordinary meaning of statutory language unless there's a good reason not to but here there is not allowing extensions only for small refineries that maintain an exemption fits with the words and structure congress adopted not alternatives it could have chosen instead the ordinary meaning reflects the statutory goal to drive the market toward renewable fuels while giving small refineries a significant but limited benefit and requiring continued compliance including with the flexibility that congress wrote into the r f s will promote its objectives without causing harm petitioners fear the decision below should be a prompt thank you  mr morrison mr chief justice and may have placed the court extension may have other possible meanings in different contexts but its ordinary meaning to lengthen or prolong is the only plausible meaning in the context of this statutory provision and petitioners have offered no compelling reason to depart from that ordinary meaning e p a s authorities there for a limited to prolong the duration of the exemption under sub paragraph a not creating new exemptions episodically e p a s unauthorized carve outs have resulted in billions of dollars of lost revenue to biofuels producers devastating the rural economies anchored by the renewable fuels and the straight petitioners suggestion that there should be a permanent safety valve to excuse them from their compliance up occasions as belied by the texan structure of the statute and is antithetical to congress's goal of increasing the volume of renewable fuel and the nation's transportation a and said here's my application for an extension sorry i'm late everybody had coded is e p a going to give him an extension so that for example the period would or wouldn't be continuous your honor what what the continuity we need is between the exemptions or the extensions of exemptions the capacious language at any time would i believe allow e p a to entertain a petition after december could ask for the dotted line i'm being convening an extension of the time to apply for an extension if they your honor with praise any time they really don't need an extension for the submitting th petition we take that language at its face value that congress meant to speak very broadly the critical thing is have for refinery to be eligible for an extension in a given compliance year that refinery has to be your honor where there are exemptions given from compliance that affect the demand for their product to affect the demand for ethanol which in turn affects the price of ren's the price of the fuel that they sell almost four billion gallons over the last few years that have been lost to small refinery exemptions that has had a devastating effect on the renewable fuel sector so your interest is  would no longer be produced and provided by the ethanol companies that's correct and congress is objective and achieving those and making sure under oath three that those levels are insured to be met by the agency it's critical that the agency provide those volumes to make sure the statutory levels are met but your interests you actually and securing the market for your product you are it's in making sure that yes we are going to be providing ethanol blending into the nation's transportation and level  two thousand and eleven and then two more years this is two thousand and eleven and it's least two more years they could have given fifteen more years as far as that wording is concerned and i guess they wouldn't want to do that because things change all the time you don't know what the price that they are and will be no one knows sometimes it's up sometimes it down now i've just given you an excellent reason why you would lose because they want small refineries to not have to do this and who is a small refinery with disproportionate hardship very tremendously possibly across the years so what do you to to show i'm wrong what you point to in the legislative history what you point to in the context in which this was an act it says no they're not worried about the fluctuating price of some changes adjust to the levels that ultimately pay can two thousand and twenty two and they had time gradually giving them all the time to build the capacity and that is explained in senate report number one thousand nine hundred and seventy four at six secondly small refineries had a five year blanket exemption plus an additional possible two years to invest or adjust and thirdly i would say that the r f s compliance costs as the government points out turned out to be  recoverable anyway which would adjust for the fluctuations if it did become more expensive in a given year those compliance costs would still be recoverable in the cost of the products sold and then finally i would point to the equities of the situation that in and fifteen only seven out of one hundred and thirty seven dollars refineries were under the exemption so about ninety five percent of the refineries in the country had complied were meeting the making their proportional contribution to the r f s demands justice  hardship might not seek an exemption when it could out but the truth is that all small refineries have every incentive in the world to apply for an exemption in a timely fashion because otherwise they'd have to comply where over once a refinery has developed a mechanism for compliance it can actually as i just mentioned it can actually recover those compliant cars so there is no disadvantage from one to the other they also have compliance flexibility then the nature of turned out congress may not have known that the costs were recoverable can you explain that i mean what is odd about this statute is that there are all sorts of jump off points away from the statute government mentioned the bunch of them the just disparate mentioned one in particular the regional effect but there are all sorts of other outs that the e p a can implement but why would congress not have anticipated the cost recovery you know all right i believe in two thousand and five in two thousand and seven congress did not have the information later claimed and  report by burkholder and there were other similar reports by middle and others that basically found that our st compliance costs were recoverable in the cost of products sold small and large that information was not available to congress in twenty billion twenty million fifty two thousand and seven i think that's part of the reason why you don't see you you actually have this exemption on the books it's also true that the department of energy when it st came out with a study in two thousand aid its initial reaction was that the further extension was not necessary because it began to see what burkholder saw in later years that the cause for recoverable so i think that's at any time speaks only to the simple procedural question of when a small refinery can submit its petition it says nothing about the substantive requirements for getting an exemption extended congress added that language and twelve thousand and twelve when the department of energy did include them and its study and i believe this distinction between the procedural question that as we've you at any time and the substantive discussion about what's required for an exemption extension is clear from four things in that language st is the ordinary meaning of made any time petition secondly is the nearest reasonable reference can and of statutory construction which places at any time next to petition the rd is the undisputedly continuous nature of the adjacent provision and a two and lastly the overall purposes of the r f s which would be undermined by an open ended and intermittent period about one hundred and sixty two million down and that's in the richmond declaration attached to our th circuit period i would also point you to justice kavanagh to the states amica filing here which details  there is a response on rebuttal another question picking up on just as private as questions seems like we have a choice whether interpret this is giving the agency flexibility to give the exemption a kind of a prohibition on granting  exemption you know why why when faced with this kind of provision that doesn't have the kind of sunset language that you would often see wouldn't we interpret this scheme to the extent there is ambiguity and although there may be other definitions possible the ordinary and common meaning is simply it remains to prolong or in large i think there are three can textual clues that bring us to the fact that this was meant to be a temporary exemption extension the st is the simple language and b one which limits e p a s authority only to extending the exemption in a one which congress said would be temporary and time limited the  is in the same way congress use extension and the rest of section two hundred and eleven dollars all throughout the cleaner act when it uses extension it does prolong continuously the duration of something preexisting and i do believe lastly that  f continuity is clear in the words congress did not choose that if it had chosen to reinstate restart renew or take in the most simple pat of just saying that someone could petition for an exemption that would lend could submit a meritorious petition each year that shows that it had a disproportionate economic hardship as long as again it was eligible to receive that exemption that year because it had an exemption extension in the preceding compliance year we think that there's still going to be a funneling effect that would remove that possibility as something indefinite though the the harm would have to be disproportionate and again what we're doing is still extending an exemption that congress itself said would be time limited and temporary well if it's not really temporary however in the sense that you know you're you're saying that for practical reasons maybe they know it's phase out but as you read the text as i understand your argument many about as you read the text there's nothing in the text that stops a small refinery from continually getting references back to the initial temporary exemption and a disproportionate economic hardship would create a funneling effect you're correct that there's no specific moment on the number of continuous extensions that a small refinery or mayor obtain petitioners have given this court no compelling reason to depart from the ordinary meaning of the word extension and it should not do so here the context in which this word is used in the statute confirms that this ordinary meaning is also the only appropriate and possible meaning consequently any extension of the temporary time of an id exemption for a new compliance year must be preceded by an exemption and the prior compliance years the statutes purpose of enhancing energy security through the increased production of biofuels further precludes petitioners assertion that a compliance exemption congress provided only on a temporary basis could somehow become permanent prices we can't in the applications we submitted to the p a we said that our margins in many cases were zero or negative once the cost of this program were taken into account and this cost is the single largest operating cost we have but we don't we don't want the court to decide as a factual matter whether we can pass through these costs or not we're just asking the e p a to look at that evidence as part of our submission but of course they won't if for this entirely  irrelevant issue of continuity they don't get to consider our applications at all and the issue of continuity doesn't depend on whether we are right or they are right about whether or not these costs can be passed through and my friend from the government began by saying that this won't do mz small refineries to go out of business but the key point is that if he's wrong about that and if it did he's saying that e p a his hands are tied and that congress meant e p a these hands to be tied and never amended to be able to grant relief even in that circumstance instead it meant that we would be funneled out of the market these are the realities that we explained in our applications many small refineries as congress recognized cannot afford the blending infrastructure and so they have to rely on the marketable writes the credit and the rins and the as everyone has acknowledged the prices for those are wildly volatile and department of energy found that having to pay those costs will constitute disproportionate economic hardship when those costs exceed the cost of blending as they generally do the price of these credits can jump up and down as much as four or five times or more in a single year so if they plummet one year and we can comply we are then completely foreclosed from relief in every future year even if they go up ten times and also if somebody somehow gave us the blending infrastructure for free at our facility that would not solve the issues we have because the issues are structural and congress did understand and anticipate just disparate that's why they wrote this whole separate subsection about small refineries many of these refineries are located in geographically remote areas they depend on pipelines to reach their markets and pipelines don't take blended fuel because it's corrosive to pipelines they don't own retail gas stations like their larger competitors they can't compel the gas stations to take their blended fuel and the gas stations often don't and they have to sell a larger proportion in the rest of the industry of diesel because they're in remote areas and diesel doesn't take blending to the same degree as the others so there are all sorts of reasons why congress understood that small refineries needed this different provision and that's why they authorized them to seek relief at any time based on hardship thank you counsel of the cases submitted