Key Contacts
EPA’s Email Does Not Constitute A Final Agency Action, Tenth Circuit Finds
In Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company, LLC v. United States Environmental Protection Agency, No. 22-9530 (10th Cir. July 5, 2023), the Honorable Scott M. Matheson, Jr. of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit dismissed a petition for review filed by Sinclair Wyoming Refining Company, LLC (“Sinclair”) of an email from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) for lack of jurisdiction because it was not a final agency action. Sinclair applied for a hardship exemption from EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standards for compliance year 2018 and, when EPA did not immediately respond, submitted Renewable Identification Numbers (“RINs”) in compliance with the regulations. Sinclair’s application was initially denied by EPA and later reconsidered and approved. Sinclair asked EPA in two separate emails to return the RINs that it had submitted for calendar year 2018. In April 2022, the Director of EPA’s Fuel Compliance Center responded to Sinclair’s email, stating, in relevant part, that “the 2018 RINs [would] not be returned… .” Sinclair filed the petition for review of EPA’s April 2022 email.
