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Page Number: 11.0

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HOLLYFRONTIER CHEYENNE REFINING, LLC v. 
RENEWABLE FUELS ASSN. 
Opinion of the Court 

all these varied examples of temporal extensions after in-
terruption.  It imagines, for example, that when a teacher
extends a paper deadline after a lapse, that act of grace al-
ways operates like a nunc pro tunc judicial decree—retro-
actively deeming the time originally allotted as now extend-
ing continuously to some new and future due date.  But no 
one  thinks  extensions  always  work  this  way.  As  the 
COVID-19  statutes  illustrate,  a  previously  lapsed  benefit 
can and sometimes is “extended” for a new period without
any retroactive effect.  Likewise, if a student misses the 4 
p.m. deadline on Friday, his teacher may extend the dead-
line by authorizing him to hand in his paper the following
Monday between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.  Besides, even looking 
to the nunc pro tunc analogy, what does it prove?  It cannot 
change  the  fact  that,  absent  time  travel,  a  lapse  or  inter-
ruption has occurred.  The student cannot go back in time
and turn in his paper when it was originally due on Friday 
afternoon.  His lapse may be forgiven or overlooked, maybe 
even with a Latin term invoked in the process, but none of
that means a break in continuity, a lapse, or an interrup-
tion  never  happened.  See  infra,  at  10,  n. 2  (discussing
treatment of a lapse under subparagraph (A)). 

We  do  not  mean  to  suggest  that  every  use  of  the  word 
“extension” must be read the same way.  On occasion, for 
example, Congress requires “extensions” to be “consecutive” 
or “successive.”  E.g., 8 U. S. C. §1184(g)(8)(D); 10 U. S. C. 
§2304a(f ); 19 U. S. C. §2432(d)(1); 28 U. S. C. §594(b)(3)(A).
Modifiers like those may well suggest a continuity require-
ment.  See,  e.g.,  Webster’s  New  Collegiate  Dictionary,  at
846 (defining “successive” as “following each other without 
interruption”).  Other  contextual  clues  in  a  given  statute
may yield a similar conclusion.  But none of that means the 
bare  term  “extension”  obviously  and  always  includes  a
strict continuity requirement.  If anything, the absence of
any  parallel  modifying  language  in  the  statute  before  us
supplies one clue that continuity is not required here.