The petroleum industry has filed a legal challenge over the expanded Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS2), which was just finalized by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA) filed the lawsuit Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging the EPA rule, officially published in the Federal Register on Friday.

Both organizations issued similar statements regarding the legal action, which focus on the retroactive provisions of the rule. “We believe this rule unlawful and unfair, and we filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to challenge the legality of EPA’s actions,” said the API statement. “EPA made the rule effective on July 1, 2010 while setting unreasonable mandates on refiners that reach back to 2009 for bio-based diesel and to January 1 for the other advanced biofuels.”

“The petition NPRA filed today does not challenge the overall RFS2 program and does not call into question the important role renewable fuels play in our nation’s transportation fuel mix,” NPRA President Charles T. Drevna said. “Simply put, the fact that EPA failed to meet its statutory obligations under current energy law does not give the Agency license to impose retroactively additional compliance burdens on obligated parties. At the least, such action calls into serious question the fundamental fairness of EPA’s RFS2 rulemaking process.”