National Chicken Council v. EPA

A coalition of meat industry groups filed a lawsuit challenging EPA criteria for determining which biofuels meet the U.S. renewable fuels standard. The meat industry lawsuit objected to provisions in the rule that deemed some ethanol facilities at which construction commenced in 2008 and 2009 to be compliant with the standard. The final rule exempted ethanol produced from corn at facilities in or at which construction commenced before December 17, 2007 from the requirement that a renewable fuel must reduce life-cycle GHG emissions by at least 20 percent compared with gasoline. In the final rule, EPA extended the exemption to ethanol produced at facilities that use natural gas or biofuels as an energy source at which construction began before December 31, 2009.