Description: Challenge to EPA approval of alternative procedures for Argentine biofuel producers compliance with land use requirements of the Renewable Fuel Standard.
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National Biodiesel Board v. EPA
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/03/2017 Petition for Rehearing Download Combined petition filed requesting panel rehearing and petition for en banc rehearing. Biofuel Trade Association Sought Rehearing of D.C. Circuit Decision Upholding EPA Authorization of Argentine Biofuel Producers’ Renewable Fuel Standard Compliance Plan. National Biodiesel Board (NBB) asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc after the court dismissed NBB’s challenge to an EPA decision allowing Argentine biofuel producers to use alternative recordkeeping procedures to show that their products sold in the U.S. complied with Renewable Fuel Standard requirements intended to ensure that biofuel production does not result in land use changes such as deforestation that would exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. NBB asserted that the court had erroneously characterized EPA’s decision as an “order” rather than as a “rule,” contravening D.C. Circuit precedent, and that EPA’s decision was therefore procedurally defective. NBB also said that the court had mischaracterized aspects of the alternative recordkeeping plan and NBB’s challenges to the plan. 12/20/2016 Opinion Download Opinion issued. D.C. Circuit Upheld EPA Authorization of Argentine Biofuel Producers’ Use of Alternative Plan for Complying with Renewable Fuel Land Use Requirements. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a challenge by a U.S. biofuel industry trade association to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) decision allowing Argentine biofuel producers to use alternative recordkeeping procedures to show that their products sold in the U.S. complied with Renewable Fuel Standard requirements intended to ensure that biofuel production does not result in land use changes such as deforestation that would exacerbate greenhouse gas emissions. The D.C. Circuit said that the trade association’s challenge of the 2010 regulations establishing the alternative recordkeeping program was untimely. The D.C. Circuit also concluded that EPA’s authorization of the alternative procedures “comports with agency regulations and rests upon the kind of highly technical judgments to which we owe agencies great deference.”