Opinion ID: 4435003
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: introduction

Text: The Clean Air Act requires EPA to publish “renewable fuel standards,” ultimately expressed as “applicable percentages,” each year to ensure that the total supply of transportation fuel sold or imported into the United States contains specified proportions of each of four categories of renewable fuels. Congress intended the Renewable Fuel Standards (RFS) program to “move the United States toward greater energy independence and security” and “increase the production of clean renewable fuels.” See Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), Pub. L. No. 110-140, preamble, 121 Stat. 1492 (2007) (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 7545(o)). In these related cases, Alon Refining Krotz Springs, together with other petroleum refineries and their trade associations—the “Alon Petitioners”—seek review of EPA’s decision not to revise its 2010 point of obligation regulation requiring refineries and importers, but not blenders, to bear the direct compliance obligation of ensuring that transportation fuels sold or introduced into the U.S. market include the requisite percentages of renewables. Coffeyville Resources Refining & Marketing and another group of refineries and trade associations—the “Coffeyville Petitioners”—challenge EPA’s refusal to reassess the appropriateness of the point of obligation in the context of its 2017 annual volumetric rule, which set the 2017 applicable percentages for all four categories of renewable fuel and the 2018 applicable volume for one subset of such fuel, biomass-based diesel. See 81 Fed. Reg. 89,746 (Dec. 12, 2016) (2017 Rule). The Coffeyville Petitioners also contend that EPA arbitrarily set the 2017 percentage standards 7 too high. The National Biodiesel Board (NBB)—a biomassbased diesel industry trade association—separately contends that EPA set the 2018 applicable volume for biomass-based diesel too low. Various trade associations representing refineries and producers of renewable fuels have intervened in support of EPA. For the reasons that follow, we deny each of the petitions for review, many of which recycle arguments raised and rejected in prior challenges.