Each year, Growth Energy recognizes the leading congressional staffers who have gone above and beyond to assist and actively engage with the Growth Energy team and our members on a variety of issues that impact the biofuels industry. Growth Energy proudly announced this year’s winners of the Outstanding Congressional Staff awards at the 2025 Growth Energy Biofuels Summit (GEBS) this September.

“Every single one of these recipients have dedicated their own time to a number of legislative issues that impact the biofuels industry,” said Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor. “They are among the best and the brightest on Capitol Hill when it comes to biofuels, and we are proud to recognize all their hard work this past year.”

Learn more about this year’s winners below.

Winner – Trenton Hoekstra, Legislative Assistant to Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa)

Trenton Hoekstra is a Legislative Assistant to U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), handling the senator’s agriculture, nutrition, trade, and biofuels portfolio. In his current role, he is the senator’s first call when it comes to biofuel policy, and therefore one of the most influential staffers in the Seante on our issues. Trenton grew up on his family’s corn, soybean, and hog farm in northwest Iowa, and is a graduate of the University of South Dakota.

Winner – Thomas Liepold, Professional Staff Member for Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.)

Thomas Liepold is a Professional Staff member for Ranking Member Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) on the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry where he works on energy and rural development issues. He began working for Senator Klobuchar in 2016 and has worked on a range of issues from trade, crop insurance, livestock and biofuels. Thomas grew up on his family’s farm in Heron Lake, Minnesota. Thomas earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture marketing and a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Minnesota.

Winner – Abby Goins, Legislative Assistant to Representative Adrian Smith (R-Neb.)

Abby Goins is a Legislative Assistant for Congressman Adrian Smith (Neb.-03), a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade. Abby advises Congressman Smith on trade, agriculture, and energy policy. Prior to this role, she spent three years in Congressman Tracey Mann’s (Kan.-01) office. Abby is from Oswego, Kansas and is a graduate of Kansas State University, where she studied Agricultural Economics and Global Food Systems Leadership.

Winner – Yusuf Nekzad, Legislative Director for Representative Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.)

Yusuf Nekzad serves as Legislative Director for Rep. Nikki Budzinski (Ill.-13). Congresswoman Budzinski is a member of the House Agriculture Committee, Co-Chair of the Congressional Biofuels Caucus, and Vice Chair for Policy of the New Democrat Coalition. A known expert on the Hill for energy policy, Yusuf previously served as Legislative Affairs Coordinator for the Department of Energy’s Office of Infrastructure and as a Senior Policy Advisor to former Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois.

Congratulations to all of our Outstanding Congressional Staff award winners! Thank you for all your hard work, leadership, and partnership over the years.

The post Meet the 2025 Outstanding Congressional Staff Award Winners appeared first on Growth Energy.

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its decisions on 175 pending small refinery exemptions (SREs) on August 22, the agency also announced that it would soon be releasing a proposed rule to take comment on reallocating waived SRE gallons for the 2023 and newer compliance years. While our industry awaits that proposal, there’s still plenty to unpack in the EPA’s ruling.

EPA Granted the Majority of SREs

The number of granted SREs is, on its face, significant, but the full impact of these exemptions will depend on what’s in EPA’s forthcoming rule on reallocation. Still, the agency’s approach largely clears the backlog of pending SREs and provides positive signals moving forward as they work to finalize their latest renewable volume obligation (RVO) proposal.

In all, EPA approved a total of 140 petitions: 63 full exemptions and 77 partial (50%) exemptions. The agency also denied 28 petitions and declared seven other petitions ineligible. The total exemption volume is 5.34 billion RINs, but it’s important to remember that RINs expire after two years, and that RINs returned to refineries for compliance years 2022 and earlier cannot be used to meet future compliance years. In essence, this leaves 1.41 billion RINs for 2023 and 2024 available for use in currently-open compliance years. EPA’s table can be found below and in the linked documents below:

EPA Did Not Rule on Pending 2025 SREs

For still-pending exemption requests, EPA (rightly) did not make any determinations regarding 2025 SREs. This is due to the fact that, to request an exemption, a small refinery needs to submit three quarters of financial data for the year for which the refinery is seeking an SRE. As a result, refiners are unable to provide this data until at least October 2025, so a decision on 2025 SREs will have to wait until at least then.

EPA Outlined a RIN Return Policy

For refineries that already retired RINs for compliance, EPA said that it will return those RINs (or a portion for partial exemptions). Pre-2023 vintage RINs will be “expired,” meaning they’ll have limited utility beyond meeting still-outstanding prior obligations. However, RINs from 2023 and later will remain viable for trading or for 2024 compliance. EPA justified this approach by observing that this avoids injecting approximately three billion new RINs into the market all at once—a high number that might distort the market and potentially cause prices to crash. Still, even with the expirations, EPA’s approach does reintroduce some additional RIN supply that may dilute demand.

EPA Permitted RIN Deficit Carryovers for 2023-2024

If a small refinery carried a RIN deficit from 2023 into 2024 and received a denial or partial grant of their 2023 SRE petition, EPA will allow those refineries to retire additional 2023 RINs to count toward their 2023 RVOs.

EPA Said It Would Not Reallocate Volumes for 2022 and Earlier Compliance Years

EPA’s announcement also noted said that it will not propose reallocating exempted volumes from 2016-2022, citing limitations on RIN usability (e.g., the two-year validity window). This means there will be no retroactive increase in blending obligations for other parties and essentially locks in a reduced biofuel demand for those periods.

EPA Said It Would Rule Separately on Reallocation for More Recent Years

As noted above, EPA’s said in its release on the topic that it “will submit a draft supplemental proposed rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on the proposed reallocations of the 2023 and later compliance year exempted volumes.” The agency continued, saying:

“EPA will also be providing updated information on how the agency intends to project SREs for 2026 and 2027 in the context of establishing percentage standards for those years. The proposed adjustments will help ensure that refineries blend the intended volumes of renewable fuel into the nation’s fuel supply in 2026 and 2027 after accounting for the SREs granted for 2023 and 2024 in today’s actions and projected SREs granted for 2025-2027 in [the] Set 2.”

EPA Announced an Overall Shift in Its SRE Approach

More broadly, EPA’s decision also announced its plan to change its overall approach to granting SREs, reverting back to a 2020 Trump Administration rubric and granting partial (50%) exemptions for refineries that are able to demonstrate “partial hardship” based on the Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2011 Small Refinery Study. Basically, EPA said that it would use DOE’s Economic Hardship matrix as a proxy for demonstrating hardship unless other economic factors warranted deviation.

Find related documents below:

• EPA decision document here.
• EPA press release here.

We’ll be preparing to respond to the upcoming reallocation rule when that is released. Meanwhile, we have already scheduled a member webinar about EPA’s SRE decision for Tuesday, September 2nd at 12 pm CDT / 1 pm EDT, to hear updates from the Growth Energy team on the SREs, reallocation, and the status of EPA’s RVO proposal. Growth Energy members should check their email for a registration link.

The post Seven Points on EPA’s SRE Decision appeared first on Growth Energy.