Agreeing with a group of six small refineries, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency invoked an “impermissibly retroactive” standard to hold them to the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard program obligations.
The conservative court’s ruling deals a blow to the Biden-era EPA, which had used a new rationale to deny dozens of such RFS exemptions.
The program, which was created in 2005, establishes annual, nationally applicable volume targets for the four categories of renewable fuel. Those standards have to be followed by refiners and gas and diesel fuel ...