The Renewable Fuels Association has filed a petition to support a legal challenge brought by European ethanol producers against the European Union FuelEU Maritime Regulation, which considers crop-based biofuels to have the same emission factors as the least favorable fossil fuel pathway and effectively bans the use of renewable, crop-based marine fuels as a tool for decarbonizing the maritime sector.

RFA’s application to intervene in the proceedings supports the challenge brought by ePURE, a trade association representing European ethanol producers, and Pannonia Bio, one of Europe’s largest ethanol producers. Their application seeks to annul the relevant provisions of the FuelEU Maritime Regulation, which was adopted by the EU in 2023 and is set to take effect in 2025.

“The FuelEU Maritime regulation is unlawfully biased against crop-based biofuels and it harms ethanol producers around the world by denying them access to an emerging low-carbon fuel market,” said RFA President and CEO Geoff Cooper. “In addition, the EU’s maritime regulation is entirely inconsistent with other programs, like the Renewable Energy Directive, in which the EU has confirmed the low-carbon benefits and sustainability of crop-based biofuels.”

David Carpintero, Director General of ePURE said the FuelEU Maritime regulation jeopardises the EU’s ability to meet ambitious decarbonisation targets. “Given the importance of achieving Europe’s goals for climate change mitigation, energy independence, food security and strategic autonomy, the EU should make better use of proven domestic solutions such as renewable ethanol.”

“Europe will be a climate laggard when the global maritime and aviation markets harmonise around solutions such as sustainable crop-based biofuels that the EU has ruled out but that are affordable, scalable and have low carbon intensity,” said Mark Turley, CEO of ClonBio Group, the owner of Pannonia. “EU investors like Pannonia are now choosing the USA for new investments in large part because EU transport decarbonisation policies are unstable.”

However, Cooper said the regulation would even hamper the ability of U.S. producers to sell low-carbon fuels to maritime shippers in the United States. “Because the regulation also applies to ships arriving at EU ports, it will affect the fuel choices made by EU-bound ship operators when they refuel outside the EU,” he said. “In this way, the regulation directly discourages development and use of low-carbon marine fuels here in the U.S.”