"Court Rejects Refiners' Challenge to EPA Biodiesel Blending Rules"

"An appeals court rejected a challenge today by petroleum industry groups to U.S. EPA's biodiesel blending requirements, in a move affirming the agency's implementation of the renewable fuel standard.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously dismissed arguments by the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association that the court should review EPA's rules on biodiesel blending.

The groups had challenged the rules on three grounds, maintaining they improperly combined requirements for 2009 and 2010, that they should not have been made retroactive and that they violated requirements for minimum lead times.

The petition argued, in part, that EPA's own delays in finalizing the rules made it unfair to impose significant blending requirements under the originally described timeline."

Jenny Mandel reports for Greenwire December 21, 2010.