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Environmental group files legal challenge to RFS2

The Clean Air Task Force on behalf of the Friends of the Earth has filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency over its final rule for the expanded Renewable Fuels Standard or “RFS2”. Clean Air Task Force wants EPA to reconsider two elements of the rule.

First off, the environmental group contends under the 2007 Biofuels Mandate, Congress requires biofuels to provide a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to gasoline and diesel. They say “Congress also established safeguards to protect prairies and other natural ecosystems from being plowed under to grow biofuel crops.” The suit charges EPA is ignoring “a growing body of research” which shows some biofuels may exceed greenhouse gas thresholds. “EPA also failed to put reliable measures in place to prevent natural land in the United States from being converted into biofuel plantations.”

The suit also claims the RFS2 is flawed in that it does not take into account the so-called “global rebound effect.” CATF contends that by replacing some petroleum with biofuels in the U.S., demand for petroleum will decrease causing prices to decrease. Lower world petroleum prices will in turn prompt higher use in other parts of the world causing an overall increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) president, Bob Dineen calls this “tortured logic”. Dineen says this is similar to the indirect land use argument for which he says there is no scientific basis. As for charges the EPA is not protecting land in the U.S., Dineen says the amount of agricultural land in the country is capped at 2007 levels, “if agricultural land exceeds the 2007 level, biofuels producers must prove that their feedstock did not come from newly converted land. If they can’t prove that, their fuel will not qualify under the RFS2.” Dineen adds that his group agrees, there are fundamental flaws with the RFS2 rulemaking, “but it certainly isn’t that it didn’t go far enough.”

Read the CATF statement here:

Read the RFA statement here: