Opinion ID: 806849
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Petroleum Group

Text: The petroleum group includes associations that represent refiners and importers, which produce petroleum products, as well as “downstream” entities like fuel blenders and terminals, which handle, store, or transfer those products. The petroleum group asserts that both groups suffer an injury in fact traceable to EPA’s waiver decisions. It argues that EPA’s partial approval of the introduction of E15 into commerce effectively forces refiners and importers to actually introduce E15 into commerce because they are obligated to meet the renewable fuel requirements of the RFS. They further assert that the downstream entities will have to accommodate this new fuel type. Both sets of entities will incur substantial costs as a result of taking on E15, including “special fuel production, transportation, and fuel segregation efforts.” Pet’rs’ Br. at 19. Further costs will come from the “new compliance surveys and fuel pump dispenser labeling” required by the E15 waiver decisions. Id. In addition, these entities will purportedly face the liability risks that come with producing a fuel that they 12 contend will cause damage to misfueled vehicles. This theory fails to establish standing. We cannot fairly trace the petroleum group’s asserted injuries in fact—the new costs and liabilities of introducing and dealing with E15—to the administrative action under review in this case. That action, EPA’s approval of the introduction of E15 for use in certain vehicles and engines, does not force, require, or even encourage fuel manufacturers or any related entity to introduce the new fuel; it simply permits them to do so by waiving the CAA’s prohibition on introducing a new fuel that is not substantially similar to the fuel used to certify vehicles and engines under their applicable emission standards, see 42 U.S.C. § 7545(f)(4). In short, the only real effect of EPA’s partial waivers is to provide fuel manufacturers the option to introduce a new fuel, E15. To the extent the petroleum group’s members implement that option voluntarily, any injury they incur as a result is a “self-inflicted harm” not fairly traceable to the challenged government conduct. See, e.g., Pub. Citizen, 489 F.3d at 1290 (citing Nat’l Family Planning & Reproductive Health Ass’n, Inc. v. Gonzales, 468 F.3d 826, 831 (D.C. Cir. 2006)); Petro-Chem Processing, Inc. v. EPA, 866 F.2d 433, 438 (D.C. Cir. 1989). Petitioners maintain that the new fuel choice provided by the partial waivers is no real choice at all. They stress that if EPA makes E15 an option (as it did), “refiners and importers will necessarily have to introduce E15 into commerce” to meet their volume requirements under the RFS. Even if we were to consider the refiners’ and importers’ decision to introduce E15 as forced rather than voluntary, it would be “forced” (under their theory) not by the availability of E15 (which is the only effect of the partial waivers) but rather by the RFS, which obliges manufacturers to introduce certain volumes of renewable fuel. In other words, if the injuries of refiners and importers are traceable to anything other than their own choice to incur them, 13 it is to the RFS, not to the partial waivers they challenge here. In any event, Petitioners have not established that refiners and importers will indeed have to introduce E15 to meet their volume requirements under the RFS. The partial waivers provide obligated parties with a new option for meeting those requirements, but the RFS does not mandate that obligated parties use E15 or any other particular product to meet its requirements. In fact, as noted above, refiners and importers may only use a capped amount of corn-based ethanol to meet their RFS obligations, and they are already nearing that cap. They have provided no reason why they could not instead use a different type of fuel to meet those obligations. Of course, if that reason is cost—either the costs of research and development of fuels, or the costs of introduction of such a fuel— then their choice to instead use E15 would be a decision grounded in economics, not one forced on them by the RFS and most certainly not by the partial waivers. Moreover, Petitioners themselves indicated that there are still other options besides using E15: “The RFS includes mechanisms by which the EPA Administrator may waive the total volume of renewable fuel for any given year or waive requirements for certain renewable fuels.” Pet’rs’ Br. at 5 (citing 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)(7)(A)(i)-(ii), (D), (E), (F)). While EPA may decline to waive the RFS requirements, lobbying the Administrator to do so is another option at Petitioners’ disposal. In sum, Petitioners have not demonstrated that the partial E15 waivers provide refiners and importers with a Hobson’s choice (introduce E15 or violate the RFS) rather than a real one, such that the costs they would sustain by introducing E15 could be considered “forced by” or traceable to the challenged agency action. Petitioners offer a related argument centered on the downstream parties. These parties own infrastructure (e.g., deepwater, barge, and pipeline terminals) that aids in the 14 transfer, handling, and blending of petroleum products. Pet’rs’ Br. at x–xi, 19. Regardless of whether the E15 waiver can be said to “cause” petroleum refiners and importers to begin introducing E15, Petitioners suggest that they will introduce it given their RFS obligations, and downstream entities will have to expend significant resources to blend and otherwise deal with the E15 the refiners and importers choose to introduce. In this way, according to Petitioners, “EPA’s partial E15 waiver therefore will require these organizations to expend enormous resources to blend and introduce E15 into the market.” Pet’rs’ Br. at 19. With this argument, Petitioners again wrongly identify the actual cause of downstream entities’ choice to incur the costs of handling E15. Neither the RFS nor the partial E15 waivers “require” downstream entities to have anything to do with E15. If they face any pressure to handle E15, it is likely economic in nature. Downstream parties very well might lose business if they decline to blend or otherwise deal with E15, but that makes the choice to handle E15 one they make in their own selfinterest, not one forced by any particular administrative action. In this way, Petitioners’ argument is much like one we rejected in Petro-Chem Processing v. EPA, 866 F.2d at 438. In that case, the Hazardous Waste Treatment Council (HWTC) challenged EPA regulation of hazardous waste disposal in salt domes that HWTC argued was too lax. HWTC asserted that its members who provide cleanup services or waste brokering would be “forced” to use geologic repositories (salt domes) under the lax EPA standards and their use of unsafe methods would risk greater potential liability. The court rejected this theory of standing. We pointed out that this potential liability, “insofar as it is incurred voluntarily, is not an injury that fairly can be traced to the challenged action.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The members who used salt domes could avoid the potential liability by choosing safer methods than required by 15 EPA. If they chose the unsafe methods because of “competitive pressures,” they would presumably do so “in their own selfinterest.” Id. The resulting injury would thus be “self-inflicted, … so completely due to the [complainants’] own fault as to break the causal chain.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). So too here. All of this is to say that Petitioners’ attempt to draw a causal link between the E15 waivers they challenge and the costs they would incur by introducing E15 ultimately rings hollow. If anything is “forcing” these entities to incur the costs of introducing a new fuel, it is the obligations set by the RFS, competitive pressures, or some combination thereof. EPA’s partial waivers simply provide a new choice of fuel that manufacturers may produce. There is not a cause of those costs providing the petroleum group with standing.