BPA Dismayed at DC Circuit Ruling against Clean Electricity Fuel

Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Agency/Executive Branch, Federal Litigation, Federal Regulation, Opinions, Policy

July 21, 2021

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(Biomass Power Association/Biomass Magazine) The Biomass Power Association on July 17 expressed concern over a D.C. Circuit decision allowing the Environmental Protection Agency to delay crediting cellulosic fuel in a challenge to the agency’s 2019 Renewable Volume Obligation rule. The case is Growth Energy v. EPA, No. 19-1023. The RFS Power Coalition, including BPA and other renewable fuel producers, challenged EPA’s exclusion of clean electricity used in electric vehicles from the Renewable Fuel Standard. Currently, the biomass, biogas and waste-to-energy industries are unfairly excluded from the Renewable Fuel Standard despite supplying clean, renewable transportation fuel – in the form of electricity generated by RFS-qualifying feedstocks – to electric vehicles.

Bob Cleaves, BPA’s president, released the following statement today following the July 16 ruling:

“This decision is plainly a travesty of justice. It’s simply not credible for the court to conclude that EPA can ignore the will of Congress for 14 years by refusing to include electricity in the Renewable Fuel Standard. It cannot be acceptable for Congress to enact a law and then allow a federal agency to ignore that law in perpetuity.

“By failing to implement the law passed by Congress in 2007, the EPA is achieving only 5 percent of cellulosic fuel targets because it is hobbling clean electricity producers. Ultimately, it is farmers, foresters and municipal governments who are suffering the consequences. The Biden Administration’s vision of moving to zero-emissions electric vehicles will never be achieved if the primary fuel source available to EVs is fossil-based electricity. But if EPA does its job, we will have renewable energy sources like biomass, biogas and waste-to-energy supplying that fuel.

“We ask the Biden Administration to include electricity in its 2021 volumes expected to be released this month. Congress has directed the EPA to act on this issue in each of its past three Interior Appropriations bills, and countless members of Congress from both sides of the aisle have weighed in on this important issue. Just last month, Sen. Shaheen and Sen. Collins, joined by Sen. King, Sen. Hassan, Sen. Baldwin and Sen. Sinema, implored the EPA to finally include clean electricity in the RFS. It is time for the EPA to act, at long last.” READ MORE

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