WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the National Biodiesel Board expressed disappointment in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit’s decision on the 2019 Renewable Fuel Standard rule. NBB joined other biofuel industry associations (the case is known as Growth Energy v EPA) to challenge EPA’s failure to account for a flood of retroactive small refinery exemptions that undercut the annual volumes by 7% in 2019.
Kurt Kovarik, NBB’s Vice President for Federal Affairs, stated, “Small refinery exemptions harm biodiesel and renewable diesel producers when they retroactively reduce demand for advanced biofuels. Today’s decision creates renewed uncertainty for our industry because it does not require EPA to account for retroactive exemptions – something the 10th Circuit Court identified as ‘a gaping and ever-widening hole’ in the RFS.
“On behalf of NBB’s members, I call on EPA to quickly issue the 2021 and 2022 RFS rules, provide a strong signal of growth for advanced biofuels like biodiesel and renewable diesel, and fully account for any small refinery exemptions it plans to grant—as it has already done in the 2020 RFS rule.”
