US Court of Appeals upholds 2013 RFS

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has denied a challenge to the 2013 Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) requirements.

In its ruling, the court rejected arguments made by crude refiners, Monroe Energy, based in Trainer, Pennsylvania, that the 2013 standards were invalid because the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was late in finalising the volumes and should have reduced overall and Advanced Biofuel volume requirements when it reduced cellulosic ethanol volumes last year.

The EPA reduced the 2013 cellulosic biofuel requirements because fuel production from agricultural and forest waste has been slow and has not yet reached the legislated volume.

The 2005 Renewable Fuel Standard requires US refiners to incorporate an annually increasing amount of biofuels into the US diesel and petrol supply, up to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

'The RIN program perversely penalises independent refiners for market conditions that they are powerless to change,' Monroe states.

Anne Steckel, VP of federal affairs for the National Biodiesel Board, says: 'The court's decision is only the latest in a long series of cases in which the courts have found that the Renewable Fuel Standard is a fair and reasonable programme for achieving our national energy objectives, including promoting more Advanced Biofuel such as biodiesel.'