A renewable fuels trade group has filed a lawsuit against Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. The Advanced Biofuels Association is the first to sue Pruitt over the Renewable Fuel Standard waivers the EPA is dishing out to refineries, large and small. Association President Michael McAdams says the group is concerned that Pruitt is granting the exemptions in an arbitrary manner “behind closed doors with no accountability.”
The Association filed the lawsuit with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit given its “national implications” for the RFS program and its members. Other biofuels groups have threatened to file lawsuits as well. ABFA charges the exemptions, double those in 2016 and 2017, are killing ethanol blending incentive by some 1-point-6 billion gallons so far, by drying up purchases of ethanol credits, known as RINS. The group contends that the waivers issued by Pruitt have dropped RIN prices and caused “economic harm” to the association’s members, and poses “a threat to the integrity of the RFS program at large.”