Growth Energy v. Regan

The federal district court for the District of Columbia entered a consent decree that resolves a biofuel trade association’s lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that alleged that EPA failed to perform its non-discretionary duty to promulgate renewable fuel volumes for calendar year 2023 under the renewable fuel standard program. The consent decree required EPA to issue a proposed rule by November 16, 2022 and to issue a final rule by June 14, 2023. (The parties had agreed to an extension of the deadlines in the proposed consent decree, which were September 16, 2022 for the proposed rule and April 28, 2023 for the final rule.)

On May 23, 2022, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published notice of a proposed consent decree that would resolve a lawsuit filed by a biofuel trade association to compel EPA to promulgate a rule establishing Renewable Fuel Standard applicable volumes for the 2023 compliance year. The Clean Air Act requires promulgation of such rules “no later than 14 months before” the start of the compliance year (October 2021 in this case). The consent decree would set deadlines of September 16, 2022 for a proposed rule and April 28, 2023 for a final rule. EPA said it would take comments on the proposed consent decree until June 22, 2022.