Renewable fuels groups argue before Supreme Court in SRE venue case

Photo: Growth Energy

The American renewable fuels industry presented oral arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court March 25 in EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining LLC et al., a case that addresses where challenges to small-refinery exemption (SREs) decisions under the Renewable Fuel Standard can be brought. 

Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association jointly intervened on EPA’s behalf, urging the court to reject an argument by refineries that would allow them to “forum shop” for more favorable venues to challenge recent SRE denials despite clear direction from Congress that those decisions should be adjudicated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

“Congress clearly intended to streamline review of SRE decisions to ensure consistency and uniformity for assessing SRE petitions,” said Growth Energy and RFA in a joint statement.  

“Today, the American biofuels industry came together to argue in front of the nation’s highest court, and to defend farmers and ethanol producers from the oil industry’s attempts to create an inefficient and fractured body of law governing the SRE program,” they stated.  

The Supreme Court granted certiorari from an outlier ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which held that challenges to the SRE denials at issue were properly brought before it.  

Numerous other circuit courts disagreed, finding instead that the D.C. court is the proper venue for these SRE challenges and creating the “circuit split” on venue that the Supreme Court is poised to resolve.