kerosene and the government's view of taxable fuel goes beyond those three things that the congress lets day to a much more expansive definition that would swallow up a lot of alternative fuels and really wouldn't make any sense in the context of the predator missile hersey but fo and eighty three a by its terms is a definitional her vision is it not it's a definite definitional provision that applies for purposes of the excise tax it has that language right at the beginning of it and when congress was defining the credit it gave a different definition and it said her purpose is of the credit so congress was just you know that's what is complicated and congress is very precise you know for purposes of the credit we have these definitions for purposes of the  capital a gasoline isn't just a standard part of statutory construction that if the same provision defines a term that's itemized that you should read that definition and give it effect we don't think that that's the case here for a couple of reasons st of all when congress enacted the definition for the credit which referenced the specific cell paragraphs the rest of the statute was already there these other provisions were there and congress didn't revert and nd i think it's really important to look at what this does next part of the statute eight to actually does it's not saying what gasoline it's expanding the construction of gasoline for purposes tax credit because the tax credit is for mixture it's for mixing stuff with traditional fuels like gasoline and this provision to covers lots of things that are mixed in with gasoline and so it just wallows up the alternative fuels that could be mixed in with gasoline it just doesn't make sense and so in this case we think there was a good reason that congress referred to these theories specific some paragraphs which is because using the rest of his definition just what makes sense you know there's a separate and this is the language that we make or that the argument that we make about the components of language which is in provision so i'm saying if you if you decide to go beyond what congress that part want and go to court to at the bottom to it's that is the one stocks have to be components of gasoline and that's the government's argument is if you change is up lens and the components of gasoline language is meaningful because you only consider butane to be of lens and therefore a capsule fuel when it's actually extended the gasoline but this credit is talking about before you mix into gasoline what is beauty and it's clear even from the government's own regulations that if you're just looking at you can't buy it so it wouldn't be considered a taxable fuel and in fact there's a government regulation taft so i understand that this gets complicated but it really only gets complicated if you start going down the path the government suggested if you stick with the palca congress actually wrote which is just looking at the three some paragraphs for taxable fuels gasoline diesel fuel and kerosene it all makes sense because those are traditional fuels that congress wanted stuff blended into the alternative fuels blended into that's exactly what congress was trying to arrange as it as a can textual factor do you find it odd that the congressional record shows that from two thousand and five until approximately two thousand and fifteen gas producers did not request this and f m credits spares did before and to me the thing that's most telling is that the government's own market for claiming this credit and publication that tells you how to claim the credit from the period of two thousand and six right after this credit was an apple to twenty putting out into the world and tell it if you got revenue rolling in twenty feet and that i think is much more telling than anything that the government is you asking about who claim the credit or who did it because that's not an  very clear there congress gave a wednesday of seven things that qualify as alternative fuels and one of them is liquefied petroleum gas and butane buying everything every scientific and center in definition liquefied petroleum gas you know we have in our opening brief page after page to show this is consensus was out there and so the fact that you change so clearly it is on the list of alternative fuels i think is another reason that's in just by the government is wrong to try to expand idea taxable fuel just like swallow up alternative fuels it just it doesn't make sense for purposes of the credit to have this very broad conception that everything mixed into gasoline cans is a taxable fuel when you have a credit that is designed to  if you think of the air fam credit as a plus b a taxable fuel plus an alternative fuel why why is it that the district court is ron saying that you know butane plus butane does not equal an alternative fuel mixture well it's not butane plus butane it's butane plus gasoline and so we we do think there are two different things that are  as an alternative fuel equaling in your client's view and alternative fuel mixture is it not because  of two terms that require definition a taxable fuel rate and an alternative fuel and that it here that everyone is focused on is butane wh right and my point is that butane by itself would never qualify as a taxable fuel it doesn't qualify because congress gave us this very narrow definition of taxable fuel it only refers to start paragraph agency but it also doesn't qualify because even if you go down to the broader conception of gasoline and eat too it says the butane only counts under that when it's a component of gasoline when it's added into gasoline and that's not the only old statutory language that says that there's an separates catch phrase that actually comes after it and then of course the government if you have by itself is a taxable fuel is inconsistent with their own regulation which lists butane for the excise tax purposes by itself as an alternative fuel at sporty  not for one i understand that's a lot of citations and regulations but i just want to make the point to the court that the government's view just requires it just like we're all after one whole just doing great violence to the text and make some of their own regulations  nothing in the record about how common it is i think the government suggests that all the government says that all gasoline includes butane that's just not true that all gasoline has been the butane blended into and the only way that the government statement is true is that is that you land butane into gasoline and we know that not everyone does that because we didn't do it until two thousand and twelve and there's nothing in the record about what anyone from internet search engines and i don't think there's anything that the government has cited other than an assertion of the district court that most if not all gasoline includes butane and we don't dispute that there's trace amounts of butane but we do dispute this idea that everyone is blend morning may please the court treated hadley from the department of justice representing the united states the government's argument in this case is based on what congress said and it's actually a simple reading of the text to qualify for the gasoline production as the district court found its view tane is present in essentially all gasoline sold in this country the taxpayer did not appeal that finding in its opening brief we have cites in our brief provision incorporates gasoline from forty three and gasoline is used in four hundred and eighty three has a very specific need it's a case law makes clear when a statute or regulation includes an explicit stocks they are components of gasoline and this is a matter of common sense of congress wanted to use gasoline divorced from its meaning in section four hundred and eighty three it would have just used the word gasoline in section sixty for you to without incorporating it by reference to four hundred and eighty three just doesn't make any sense venters argument that congress used a different definition of taxable fuel for the tax credit then for the taxes in private and misread the statute congress used the exact same definition of taxable fuel for both the credit the tax taxable fuels three substances diesel gasoline diesel fuel and kerosene eighty doesn't expand that category it gives meaning to what congress meant in forty three a whine by the term gasoline there's a scene in the definition of i will point out that ventures now whole rule of interpretation that you ignore the statutory definition of cough reference turns it's unsupported by any of the case law that it cites and would create somewhat of a nightmare for the tax code which as we point in our brief frequently cross references terms that themselves include terms that are defined outside the cross reference provide the one example involving the social security tax which we detailed on page fifty nine our brief i don't want to get in those details unless the court has questions but i do want to point out that that's just one example and this is common throughout the code and that when congress and pork raised more and by reference to another statute like gasoline and forty  with their substances to produce gasoline this haggling here and i can i ask you a question because i want to make sure that i understand your point and him as and i'm not i'm not sure i followed what you just stated are you saying that because of the regulation in in four thousand and eighty one dollars dash one and the definition of gasoline one stock as including just butane freestanding  the government reports that the interest cited its brief reports from the energy department and from the e p a that in the context of alternative miller fuels the phrase liquefied petroleum gas refers not to the family of gases mess contain at least ninety percent of propane and then some various other gases including butane but because of the high level required propane it's referred to as propane sometimes or propane gas and that is certainly liquefied petroleum gas used parkman's conversion rate not for butane which has its own energy content but the energy content for liquefied petroleum gas which again the energy department viewed as  specific substance propane gas this likely don't you think this this is the weakest prong of your argument in my view because it does seem it does seem that as a canon of statutory construction you want to define the term liquefied petroleum gas to to reflect an embody its common understood meaning especially the meaning within the industry that's been taxed and it just seems undisputed to me that liquefied petroleum gas in the industry is understood to include butane two points that have actually there are many number one this is not our primary argument  commerce the waterfront transportation fuels if i'm understanding this correctly is is that right that is correct and in the credits is provided provide incentives or developments in the use of alternatives to mention whole gasoline and have a traditional rules and speaking to that point tax payers definition of gasoline because they are components of gasoline not alternatives to g i perceive this to be not a policy based argument but contextual argument and every statutory scheme has to be understood within its particular context and that's not a sin against so let's just all agree on that we do take into account the statutory context when we interpret statutory text sure and i think that context here really supports our view and it starts i think from going as fashion that you were having about the purposes of the excise tax that definition in any one many to many three trying to swallow everything that's put into the fuel that's all the can because that's all going to be used on the highways and so let's make that definition really bright but then when because those are the traditional fuels that are mixed in with alternative fuels and so you know the tax code is complicated and i think it is really important take account of the context and congress made that clear to us because it used language like for purposes of wanted to do i both saying you know these are definitions here's what the definition is it's these specific things and also the definition is for this specific contexts and i just think that the government's view just just ignores that it seems to make a cross certain fuel created through the bigger trucks process these are highlighted in the a because i hope and actually the government emits that some of them are problems because then it it has this new argument which i understand might seem hard to follow but you know it's actually very telling the government has this new argument that well it has to be a petroleum product it has to be petroleum derived actually count as a tax of more fuel and so it tries to solve the problem of overlap that way but if you actually accepted that argument government's that's out if you to a point where our own fuel would not be considered taxable you know on the policy side i think it's true that some people were blending butane with gasoline we don't have any numbers or percentages we know that we weren't doing and twelve i think it's ok for congress to decide to incentivize something people are already doing it does that for example for the home ownership acts just because it wants to encourage more of it and that especially makes sense when you're talking about blending in alternative fuel because the more alternative fuel that you use the less gasoline you have to use and that's better in terms of not using fossil or oil reserves it's better in terms of better for the environment etc and i think it's you know the government here a suggest that this is some kind of windfall but you know we paid the excise tax on our fuel to the tune of six hundred and fifteen million dollars this credit if we received it would be only about forty million dollars and so i just don't think it's right to suggest that you know we're from tax because there's this broad idea that all incumbents taxable and so if you want to exemption from it you really have to prove it but this is a credit where congress was trying to encourage me so i guess where this lea us at least in my view is that the court really has a choice between our position in the government's position and our position is a straightforward reading of this damage pretext you just read the language that congress gave to define alternative fuel for the particular purpose of the credit and that's the very specific cross reference for taxable fuel and all the words have meaning and i think superfluous and no regulation is superfluous it all makes sense and butane getting given the credit for you can actually furthers the purposes because butane is better in terms of less greenhouse gas emissions and it means you don't have to use as much gasoline so it's better for reducing dependence on foreign oil and then on the other hand you've got the government's position which frankly just leads to one interpretive problem after another it makes the cross reference the exact definition of taxable fuel the congress gave for purposes of the credit just makes it superfluous it just cuts out that language then if you look to this broader section forty three dollars a two expands taxable fuels to swallow up alternative fuels then because it does that the government has to make this new argument it's brief about how it has to be a petroleum product meaning actually derived from petroleum in that batch and ours isn't under that definition  right thank you very much thanks to both counsel the case has taken