A U.S. appeals court has ruled against the Biden administration's decision to deny small refiners “hardship waivers” exempting them from the nation's biofuel mandates. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had, in July, rejected most pending petitions from oil refiners claiming financial hardship due to the federal requirement of blending ethanol and other biofuels into their fuel.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with refineries challenging the EPA's denial, including Ergon, Calumet Shreveport, and Placid. In its 38-page decision, the court deemed the EPA's rejection of the waiver requests as “impermissibly retroactive, contrary to law, and counter to the record evidence.”
The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) mandates that oil refiners blend a substantial volume of biofuels into the national fuel mix or purchase tradable credits from those complying. The EPA has the authority to grant exemptions to certain small refiners if they demonstrate that the obligations create undue harm.
This ruling marks a victory for the refining industry, which has contended that ethanol mandates place unfair financial burdens on fuel producers and pose a threat to the viability of smaller plants. On the other hand, the biofuel sector, particularly corn-based ethanol producers, has argued against what they perceive as the overuse of small refinery waivers, asserting that it benefits the oil industry at the expense of American farmers.
