By Andrew Chung
June 25 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court docket on Friday bolstered a bid by small oil refineries to hunt exemptions from a federal regulation requiring growing ranges of ethanol and different renewable fuels to be blended into their merchandise, a significant setback for biofuel producers.
The 6-Three ruling overturned a decrease courtroom resolution that had faulted the U.S. Environmental Safety Company for giving refineries in Wyoming, Utah and Oklahoma extensions on waivers from the Clear Air Act’s renewable gasoline commonplace necessities though the businesses’ prior exemptions had expired.
The case concerned exemptions given to items of HollyFrontier Corp HFC.N and CVR Power Inc CVI.N.
The ruling was authored by conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch. Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, dissented from the choice.
President Joe Biden’s administration has been contemplating methods to supply reduction to U.S. oil refiners from biofuel mixing mandates.
The case mirrored a long-running dispute between the oil and corn industries. The authorized battle targeted on adjustments made in 2005 and 2007 to the Clear Air Act to require biofuel quotas in U.S. gasoline and diesel merchandise – supposed to scale back dependence on overseas oil and help fossil gasoline options.
States backing the refineries included Wyoming. These backing biofuels included Iowa. Each side cited financial threats to their rural economies posed by the litigation.
Renewable gasoline teams mentioned that a rise in waivers throughout Republican former President Donald Trump’s administration had undercut the demand for his or her merchandise by billions of {dollars}.
Small refineries had been exempt till 2011 to account for any “disproportionate financial hardship” they might endure by complying with quantity necessities for ethanol and different biofuels. However the regulation additionally allowed the EPA to increase these exemptions for sure durations.
At difficulty within the case was whether or not the EPA impermissibly exempted items of HollyFrontier and CVR Power in 2017 and 2018 once they had not acquired steady prior extensions of an preliminary exemption.
A number of biofuel producer teams together with the Renewable Fuels Affiliation challenged the waivers. The Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals final 12 months discovered that the EPA had exceeded its authority “as a result of there was nothing for the company to ‘lengthen.'”
(Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Enhancing by Will Dunham)
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