Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-472_0pm1.pdf
Page Number: 18.0

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

The petitioners stress as well that, even on the respond-
ents’  account,  Congress  did  create  a  “safety  valve”  rather 
than  a  “funnel”  for  some  small  refineries:  Those  with  an 
unbroken record of failing to comply with the RFP may con-
tinue to seek and obtain extensions forever without being
“funneled”  toward  compliance.    Supra,  at  11–12.    Yet  the 
respondents never explain why the least compliant refiner-
ies  should  be  the  most  favored  in  this  way.    Nor  do  they
confront the fact that their rule would have the strange ef-
fect of disincentivizing small refineries from ever trying to
comply.  Brief for Petitioners 22; Brief for State of Wyoming 
et al. as Amici Curiae 13–14.  And even on the respondents’ 
account, EPA will have to consult its 2008 study in future
years for these permanently noncompliant refineries.

Beyond that, the petitioners note, if subparagraph (B)(i) 
really did create a “miss one and done” rule for small refin-
eries able to comply with RFP mandates in a single year the
statute could wind up  reducing overall domestic fuel sup-
ply—all without adding a single additional gallon of renew-
able fuel to the mix.  See 42 U. S. C. §7545(o)(5)(B); 40 CFR 
§80.1427.  Permanently shuttering existing small refineries 
in  the  process  could,  as  well, increase  the  Nation’s  future
reliance on imported fuels.  Brief for Petitioners 41.  All of 
which sits uneasily with even the respondents’ account of
the statute’s purposes.

We mention all this not because we pick sides.  Neither 
the statute’s text, structure, nor history afford us sufficient 
guidance to be able to choose with confidence between the 
parties’ competing narratives and metaphors.  We mention 
this only to observe that both sides can offer plausible ac-
counts of legislative purpose and sound public policy—and 
that it would therefore be a mistake to rely on appeals to
some abstract intuition that the number of small refineries 
receiving  exemptions  “should  have  tapered  down”  over 
time.  948  F. 3d,  at  1246  (emphasis  added).    Instead,  our 
analysis can be guided only by the statute’s text—and that