SCOTUS biofuel waiver decision – What it means, the good news, reactions, why it isn’t over yet

The SCOTUS decision

The 6-3 ruling overturned a lower court decision that had faulted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for giving refineries in Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma extensions on waivers from the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard requirements even though the companies’ prior exemptions had expired, according to Reuters. Bloomberg reported that the justices rejected arguments that the EPA’s exemption power is limited to only a handful of refineries that have received uninterrupted annual waivers from the Renewable Fuel Standard.

Interestingly, Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, in dissenting from the decision.

What this means

It’s no secret that President Biden supported biofuels and was “expected to issue fewer waivers and force more refineries to satisfy annual biofuel quotas by either blending plant-based alternatives into their products or buying compliance credits from other companies that have. However, the new precedent will give future administrations wide clearance to exempt oil refineries from annual blending quotas,” according to Bloomberg. And let’s not forget that small refinery waivers surged under former President Trump which didn’t make biofuel producers happy.

But it’s not over yet. The Renewable Fuels Association points out that “While the Supreme Court failed to affirm a portion of the Tenth Circuit decision, the Biofuels Coalition pointed out that the appellate court also ruled that EPA’s exemption decisions must reconcile the agency’s consistent findings that all refineries recover the costs of compliance with the RFS, and that EPA may only use hardship caused by the RFS to justify granting exemptions. Despite today’s Supreme Court decision, EPA must still resolve those other aspects of the Tenth Circuit ruling.”

Go to the next page for some other good news, reactions from key industry players and more.