Growth Energy, the National Corn Growers Association and the Renewable Fuels Association filed a petition for rehearing with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals regarding the recent American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, et al. vs. EPA decision, in which the court vacated a 2019 regulation allowing year-round sales of a 15% ethanol fuel blend. The petition asks the full court to rehear the case because what they note are “significant legal errors” in the three-judge panel’s decision, handed down on July 2nd.
In their latest petition they state, “Because of its higher ethanol content and lower RVP, E15 better achieves Congress’s environmental, economic, and security goals than E10. The panel decision, however, effectively bars E15 from being used in the summer, relegating the country to using only E10 and depriving it of E15’s many added benefits. The full Court should grant rehearing to correct the panel’s errors.”
In June 2019, EPA issued its final rule extending the Reid Vapor Pressure, or RVP, volatility waiver to E15, and found that E15 is substantially similar to E10 certification fuel, allowing the fuel to be sold year-round in conventional gasoline markets. Oil refiners soon challenged the rulemaking in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Together, the three national organizations stated: “If allowed to stand, this court’s decision to vacate EPA’s rulemaking to allow E15 to be sold year-round will have devastating consequences for the market expansion of homegrown biofuels.”