EPA wants SCOTUS to stay out of the E15 case

Source: BY MATTHEW CHOI AND JOSH SIEGEL, Politico • Posted: Sunday, December 12, 2021

EPA doesn’t want the Supreme Court to wade into the ongoing fight over the year-round sale of 15-percent ethanol blends in gasoline. The agency submitted a brief to the high courtthis week in the aftermath of a D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that vacated a Trump-era rule allowing E15 to be sold year-round, writing that the appellate court’s analysis didn’t reflect any serious error that warrants the Supreme Court’s look.

Growth Energy, a biofuels trade group, had called on the Supreme Court to review the D.C. Circuit decision. But in its brief, EPA said that while “legitimate questions exist,” the court’s decision “was based on a thorough application of settled statutory-interpretation principles.”

Try this: Six farm and biofuel groups are ready with a remedy for EPA to establish year-round E15 without going through the courts. Instead, the groups wrote to Administrator Michael Regan on Thursday calling for the agency to set regulations requiring lower-volatility conventional gasoline blendstock in the summertime. “In the wake of the court decision, we believe this approach is a relatively simple regulatory fix EPA should pursue to achieve regulatory parity for E15 and the more common gasoline blend containing 10% ethanol,” the groups wrote.

|