Small Refinery Exemption Carve-Out Shifts Renewable Fuel Costs
S. 2742 — Protect Consumers from Reallocation Costs Act of 2025 · Filed by Mike Lee (R-UT) · 8 cosponsors · Introduced Sep 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill amends the Clean Air Act to prevent the EPA from reallocating renewable fuel blending obligations away from small refineries that receive exemptions. Currently, when a small refinery gets a hardship exemption from blending renewable fuels, the EPA can reassign that obligation to other refineries; this bill blocks that reallocation and requires the small refinery's production to still count toward the total fuel pool for calculating obligations.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a carve-out from renewable fuel compliance obligations for small refineries, preventing the EPA from reallocating their exempted volumes to other parties. This is regulatory relief narrowly benefiting a defined industry segment.
What the text implies
- Exempted small-refinery volumes are excluded from reallocation but still counted in the total fuel pool, which may reduce the effective renewable fuel blending percentage across the entire market without reducing total obligations.
- Larger refineries absorb the obligations that would have been reallocated, increasing their compliance costs and potentially raising fuel prices for consumers.
- The bill does not cap the number or duration of small-refinery exemptions, so the scope of exempted volumes is determined by EPA discretion under existing law, creating uncertainty about the actual market impact.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Small refineries face lower compliance costs and reduced financial pressure, which may support rural economies and smaller producers; however, the reallocation prohibition shifts renewable fuel blending obligations to larger refineries, potentially raising fuel prices for consumers and reducing the overall renewable fuel volume actually blended into the fuel supply if small refineries' exempted volumes are not replaced.
Who stands to gain
- small refineries (reduced renewable fuel blending compliance costs)
- rural and independent refinery operators
Named in the bill
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), small refineries, Clean Air Act Section 211(o)(9), Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)
Where it stands
8 cosponsors: 7 Republicans, 1 Democrats.
- Sep 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Sep 9, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
5 lobbying clients named this bill on 7 disclosure filings across 3 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $4,380,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 3 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 78% of bills with at least one filing.
Mike Lee, the sponsor, reported $241,000 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Koch Government Affairs, LLC — $2,760,000 on 1 filing
- American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers — $1,160,000 on 1 filing
- Pbf Holding Company LLC — $200,000 on 1 filing
- Hf Sinclair Corporation — $130,000 on 2 filings
- Hf Sinclair Corporation — $130,000 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (964 characters) on Sep 7, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,398 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-23.
“Small Refinery Exemption Carve-Out Shifts Renewable Fuel Costs” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s2742 Report an error
The week in bills
One email, Sunday: what Congress passed, what it changed, and who paid.
One link arrives to confirm the address. It is used for this email and nothing else, and every issue carries an unsubscribe link.