Renewable Fuels Groups Argue before the Supreme Court in SRE Venue Case

March 26, 2025

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(Growth Energy and Renewable Fuels Association) The American renewable fuels industry presented oral arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court today in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC, et al., a case that addresses where challenges to small refinery exemptions (SREs) decisions under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) can be brought.

Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) 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.”

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. Circuit is the proper venue for these SRE challenges and creating the “circuit split” on venue that the Supreme Court is poised to resolve. READ MORE

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Excerpt from DTN Progressive Farmer: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in a case that will determine where future lawsuits will be heard in small-refinery exemptions cases.

In recent years, federal appeals courts have been split on which court is the proper venue for continued legal challenges on SREs to the Renewable Fuel Standard.

An attorney for refining interests argued that small refiners should have their appeals to those exemption requests that are denied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency heard in federal courts closest to where they do business.

Attorneys representing the EPA, agriculture and biofuels interests, however, made a case for having cases with nationally applicable influence heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Seth P. Waxman, an attorney for biofuels groups Growth Energy and Renewable Fuels Association, told the justices that there needs to be consistent court rulings because the RFS is a national rule.

"The core objective of Section 307B is to avoid inconsistent rules arising from duplicative litigation in the administration of the Clean Air Act," Waxman told the court. "Yet under the ruling below, eight different courts of appeals will be passing on the merits of EPA's standards for eligibility under the small-refinery exemption, producing, as is already evident from the two circuits that have opined, different substantive standards completely the opposite of what Congress manifestly intended."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit determined in November 2023 that it was the proper venue to hear the challenge brought by refiners.

The RFA argued the Fifth Circuit erred in that ruling, instead saying in a petition that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had "exclusive venue" on challenges to EPA's April and June 2022 SRE decisions. In its 2023 ruling, the Fifth Circuit had called out the EPA for changing its interpretation of the SRE regulations.

Other small refineries petitioned for review of the 2022 decisions to the Third, Seventh, Ninth, 10th, 11th and D.C. circuits. Each of the circuits either dismissed the petitions without prejudice for improper venue or transferred them to the D.C. circuit.

...

Malcolm L. Stewart, deputy solicitor general at the U.S. Department of Justice arguing the case for EPA, told the court that sending all the SRE cases to the D.C. Circuit would be one way to have "centralized review" and that "you do not have a lot of courts making the same determination of federal law without some means of bringing harmony to them."

Justice Elena Kagan said each individual refiner that requests an exemption has individual reasons for doing so and perhaps benefits from local courts hearing their appeals.

"Sure, there's always some nationwide determination in the mix but if it's a kind of thing where that nationwide determination applied is going to come out differently on different decisions depending on local conditions, then you don't want it in the DC circuit," Kagan said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch said the current system of filing appeals seems to work as it should even in RFS cases.

"The harmony can also be achieved through appeal, right," Gorsuch said.

"I mean the government's not afraid of litigating in appropriate forms across the country, right?"

If the current split between federal appeals court circuits is allowed to continue, biofuels groups have argued it would allow refiners to essentially venue shop for courts friendly to their cause in RFS cases.

If the Supreme Court resolves the split, it will set a national standard for how future RFS cases are litigated.

In January 2024, the Renewable Fuels Association and Growth Energy asked for a rehearing on a court decision in November 2023 that overturned the EPA's rejection of small-refinery waivers for six oil companies.

When appellate courts are split, the Supreme Court usually steps in on a case.

In 2022, the Biden administration rejected 105 exemptions previously granted to small refineries. Refining companies filed numerous appeals to the Third, Seventh, Ninth, 10th and 11th circuits. All of the courts concluded the D.C. Circuit was the proper venue except for the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit then issued a ruling overturning EPA's action on six exemptions. READ MORE

Except from FOX13:

"The information is unique to Utah. Our topography, our mountains, our air quality, the dynamics of Utah," said Utah Attorney General Derek Brown in an interview with FOX 13 News from Washington D.C. following the arguments.

The justices on the U.S. Supreme Court grappled with the issue.

"I mean, gosh, if anything's -- if anything is nationwide in impact, it's got to be air pollution because it travels," said Justice Neil Gorsuch.

"Well, the whole statute's about air pollution. But with respect to the good neighbor provision, EPA made clear that interstate ozone transport is a 'regional scale pollution problem,'" said Mithun Mansinghani, arguing for the states of Oklahoma and Utah.

The "good neighbor" provision involves federal regulations on air pollution generated in one state that travels downwind to another state, impacting their air quality.

"Unfortunately, the public should understand this is yet the latest attempt by the state to evade responsibility and evade government regulations that impact all of us," said Dr. Brian Moench, the president of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment.

Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment has legal cases pending over air quality issues, including one they are involved in before the U.S. Supreme Court surrounding the Uinta Basin Railway. Dr. Moench said he was optimistic based on the line of questioning by the justices.

"This time they may make a ruling that actually protects the ability of groups like ours to go to court in a way the state of Utah is trying to erode," he said.

Utah's attorney general countered that this should not be a D.C.-centric thing.

"We, of course, are arguing that that’s not the point," Brown said. "That the Congress intended the EPA to look at the individual states, to look at what makes them different and individualized and we believe that’s something the Court should take into consideration."

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the fall. READ MORE