US biofuel groups are challenging the EU’s ReFuelEU Aviation Regulation and are demanding an annulment of sections that exclude crop-based biofuels from the definition of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), Argus Media wrote on 3 May.
The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA), US Grains Council, biofuel trade association Growth Energy and SAF company LanzaJet had filed an “application for leave to intervene” before the General Court of the EU, arguing that the regulation would “have a detrimental effect on the US ethanol industry”, the Argus Media report said.
The RFA said their application supported a challenge brought by European ethanol producer association ePURE and Pannonia Bio, one of Europe’s largest ethanol producers against the regulation which was adopted by the EU in 2023 and was set to take effect in 2025.
“[T]he contested provisions give rise to a de facto ban on the supply of crop-based biofuels to the aviation sector in the EU,” the organisations said in a statement.
“Due to the substantial difference in cost between biofuels and fossil fuels in the EU, aviation fuel suppliers will not purchase biofuels instead of fossil fuels unless they are obliged or incentivised to do so. Since using crop-based biofuels will not help aviation fuel suppliers meet their obligations under the regulation, they will not purchase those biofuels.”
The RFA said it had also filed a petition supporting a legal challenge brought by European ethanol producers against the EU’s FuelEU Maritime Regulation, set to take effect in 2025.
