Growth Energy Amicus Brief Points Toward EPA’s Lost Opportunity on Biofuels

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Growth Energy, the nation's largest biofuel trade association, filed an amicus brief today in a case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit challenging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles, otherwise known as the"tailpipe emissions rule." In the amicus brief, Growth Energy noted that EPA's rule was a missed opportunity to recognize the positive impact biofuels can have on reducing tailpipe emissions.

"As Congress recognized when it enacted the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) almost twenty years ago, biofuels offer numerous climate and other benefits. When compared with petroleum, corn ethanol emits only about half as much greenhouse gases (GHGs), and cellulosic ethanol, made from the waste components of crops, emits even less," Growth Energy said in the amicus brief. "Ethanol and other biofuels also emit less particulate matter and other pollutants harmful to human health. And all these benefits are readily available right now, all while enhancing energy security and supporting U.S. jobs."

In EPA's rule, which is designed to reduce emissions of GHGs and other pollutants in vehicles for model years 2027 and later, the agency ignored biofuels and their enormous, congressionally recognized benefits.

"EPA's analyses treated vehicles that operate on biofuels the same as vehicles that operate exclusively on fossil fuels. EPA failed to consider using or incentivizing higher biofuel blends in vehicles as a way to reduce emissions. And EPA's cost-benefit analysis looked only at the employment and energy security impacts of the petroleum industry, disregarding the biofuels industry entirely," the amicus brief said. "For the agency that Congress entrusted to promote biofuels, EPA's total failure to acknowledge biofuels in the Rule is arbitrary and capricious."

Read Growth Energy's full amicus brief here.