API appeals E15 gasoline rule to US Supreme Court
The American Petroleum Institute (API) and other groups have appealed to the US Supreme Court a lower-court decision rejecting a challenge to a grant of partial waivers for use of the E15 ethanol-gasoline blend, the trade group said on Thursday.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) waivers had been approved by a D.C. Circuit Court, said Bob Greco, API’s group director for downstream and industry operations.
“We’ve filed this petition because the D.C. Circuit incorrectly concluded that none of the 17 petitioners had standing to challenge the E15 partial waivers – not the engine manufacturers whose products will run on this new fuel blend, not the petroleum industry who must undertake massive infrastructure changes to accommodate the blend and meet the renewable fuel mandate, and not the food producers who now face significantly greater competition in the commodities market for corn, the conventional feedstock for ethanol."
The API says that had EPA stayed within its statutory authority and followed proper procedures, it would have waited until ongoing E15 testing on engines and fuel systems was completed before allowing its use.
"Then it would have discovered that E15 is not safe for millions of vehicles now on the road," said Greco.
“Although we hope the court will resolve the E15 problem, we also believe our experience here represents only one of many underlying problems with the Renewable Fuel Standard, so we are calling on Congress to repeal the program."
Comments