Oil Groups Sue EPA Over RFS

STREATOR, Ill. (DTN) -- The American Petroleum Institute and American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers filed a joint lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia late Wednesday, March 18, against the Environmental Protection Agency for its failure to issue the 2014 and 2015 renewable fuel blending mandates.

The annual mandates for the Renewable Fuel Standard set the Renewable Volume Obligation for refiners, importers and blenders of petroleum-based gasoline and diesel fuel, dictating what percentage of these petroleum-based products they need to offset with a qualified renewable fuel or compliance credit.

The law establishing the RFS requires the EPA to issue a finalized annual RVO target by Nov. 30 of the prior year to allow obligated parties time to prepare and act on the mandate. However, the RVOs for 2014 and this year have still not been promulgated by EPA, an action the lawsuit seeks to compel.

"The agency still hasn't finalized the RFS requirements for this year or even last year, leaving companies to guess how much ethanol they were mandated to blend into gasoline," Carlton Carrol, spokesman for the API told DTN Thursday afternoon.

"Hopefully, EPA will work with us to address these important rulemakings and to get the program on the time schedule required by Congress," said AFPM general counsel Richard Moskowitz.

The API is also advocating Congress repeal the RFS.

"The only real solution is for Congress to scrap the program and let consumers, not the federal government, choose the best fuel to put in their tanks," Carrol said.

Myke Feinman can be reached at myke.feinman@dtn.com

(BM/AG)

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