Good news for ethanol producers as federal court rejects EPA’s waiver of ethanol blending requirements

In Washington, DC, a federal court, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, rejected EPA’s decision to waive some ethanol blending requirements. In 2015, the EPA waived some RFS blending requirements and required oil refiners to blend 18.11 billion gallons of biofuels into their gasoline and diesel supply, which was below the goal set by Congress. Ethanol producers are quite happy with the ruling as they have been pushing the EPA for higher blending requirements.

As told in The Hill, the court ruling said “We hold that the ‘inadequate domestic supply’ provision authorizes EPA to consider supply-side factors affecting the volume of renewable fuel that is available to refiners, blenders, and importers to meet the statutory volume requirements. It does not allow EPA to consider the volume of renewable fuel that is available to ultimate consumers or the demand-side constraints that affect the consumption of renewable fuel by consumers.”