RFA aims to intervene in legal challenge to EU Maritime Fuel Regulation

The Renewable Fuels Association has filed a petition to intervene in support of a legal challenge brought by European ethanol producers against the European Union’s FuelEU Maritime Regulation.
By arbitrarily assuming crop-based biofuels like ethanol have the same lifecycle carbon emissions as the dirtiest fossil-based marine fuels, the EU regulation effectively bans the use of renewable, crop-based marine fuels as a tool for decarbonising the maritime sector.
“The FuelEU Maritime regulation is unlawfully biased against crop-based biofuels and it harms ethanol producers around the world by denying them access to an emerging low-carbon fuel market,” said RFA president and CEO Geoff Cooper.
He said the regulation would even hamper the ability of U.S. producers to sell low-carbon fuels to maritime shippers in the United States.
“Because the regulation also applies to ships arriving at EU ports, it will affect the fuel choices made by EU-bound ship operators when they refuel outside the EU,” he said. “In this way, the regulation directly discourages development and use of low-carbon marine fuels here in the US.”