Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-472_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 30

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

11 

BARRETT, J., dissenting 

the refinery must apply.  §7545(o)(3)(B).  This is a “signifi-
cant  statutory  concession.”  948  F. 3d,  at  1248.    It  allows 
(but does not require) regulated refineries to see what their
obligations will be before deciding whether to seek an ex-
emption; it also means that EPA may not always be able to
“ ‘compensate for the renewable-fuel shortfall created by be-
lated exemptions.’ ” Ibid. (quoting American Fuel & Petro-
chemical Mfrs. v. EPA, 937 F. 3d 559, 571 (CADC 2019)).

In  addition,  the  phrase  helps  account  for  the  delayed-
request scenarios the Court posits.  See ante, at 7.  To see 
why,  suppose  that  a  refinery  with  an  exemption  in  2014
planned to ramp up its operations in 2015 and anticipated
that it would no longer need or qualify for exempt status. 
Then imagine that, halfway through 2015, the refinery con-
cluded that it would in fact need an exemption for that year. 
The “at any time” provision allows it to file for one, thereby 
giving refineries the ability to adjust in the face of “market 
fluctuations and changing hardship conditions.”  Ante, at 9. 
Unlike the Court’s interpretation, this account of “at any
time”  respects  the  ordinary  meaning  of  “extension”  by  re-
quiring the “exemptions” themselves to run continuously—
in the above example, from 2014 to 2015. 

Second, the Court leans on the fact that “subparagraph
(A) uses the term ‘extension’ without a continuity require-
ment.”  Ibid.  That must be so, according to the Court, because
a  refinery  could  fall  out  of  small-refinery  status,  say,  in 
2010,  yet  still  receive  an  “extension  of  the  exemption”  for
2011 under subparagraph (A)(ii). 

It is hard to know quite what to make of the Court’s the-
ory.  It  never  played  out  in  practice,  as  EPA  regulations 
meant that no small refinery lost exempt status during the 
years in question.  See 72 Fed. Reg. 23925 (2007); 75 Fed. 
Reg. 14866 (2010); see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 66–67.  And the 
theory  was  neither  passed  on  by  the  court  below  nor  dis-
cussed by respondents here, as it appeared for the first time 
in a footnote of HollyFrontier’s reply brief.  Reply Brief 10,