Iowa and Nebraska Attorneys General notify EPA of “intent to sue” for delay to year-round E15

In Iowa, Iowa and Nebraska Attorneys General notified EPA Administrator Michael Regan of their “intent to sue” the agency for its illegal delay to promulgate regulations allowing year-round E15 sales. Despite a Clean Air Act (CAA) requirement to act within 90 days, EPA took over 300 days to issue a proposed rule and used the delay to justify implementing the new rules for the summer of 2024 instead of the summer of 2023.

In April of 2022, Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds and seven other governors notified the EPA of their decision to exercise their CAA authority to allow year-round E15 sales. EPA recently issued a proposed rule, still not finalized, that approves the decision but delays the effective date to 2024.

Federal law requires a notice of “intent to sue” 60 days before a lawsuit can be filed.

In their notice to EPA, the Attorneys General stated: “To the extent there are real production, distribution, retail, and other problems as raised by EPA, those are problems of EPA’s own creation… we demand the EPA issue temporary emergency declarations for the 2023 high-ozone season to bridge the gap until the waiver takes place.”