By Jarrett Renshaw

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday began clearing a backlog of requests from small oil refineries for exemptions from the nation’s biofuel laws, granting 63 and denying 28 of the them, with 77 receiving partial approvals.

The approvals mark a win for some small U.S. refiners. For years they have argued that the federal mandate to blend biofuels like ethanol into the country’s fuel supply is a significant financial hardship.

(Reporting By Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by David Gregorio and Susan Heavey)

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