High Court Urged To Stay Out Of Calif. Auto Emissions Fight

The Biden administration and California have asked the U.S. Supreme Court not to disturb a D.C. Circuit decision that let the Golden State keep its ability to set its own vehicle greenhouse gas emissions standards and run a zero-emissions vehicle program.

Fuel industry groups and 17 Republican-led states want the justices to review the D.C. Circuit's ruling that backed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's restoration of a Clean Air Act waiver for California that had been yanked by the Trump administration. They argue that the lower court wrongly concluded they lacked standing to challenge the waiver's restoration and that it effectively makes California a global climate change regulator, given the size and influence of the state's vehicle market.

But the federal government told the Supreme Court in a Monday brief that the D.C. Circuit correctly held it could not redress the states’ and fuel industry groups' alleged harms because they did not provide any evidence that automakers, which are directly subject to California's GHG rules covering vehicles through the 2025 model year, would alter their move toward producing lower-emission vehicles if the waiver was revoked.

In fact, the evidence in the record shows that market forces continue to push automakers toward producing more lower-emission and electric vehicles, the government said in its brief.

“To be sure, petitioners could have sought to offer their own evidence showing that automakers would likely change course if the challenged EPA waiver was vacated,” the government said in its brief. “But petitioners instead provided 'conclusory' declarations simply stating that petitioners’ injuries ‘would be substantially ameliorated if EPA’s decision were set aside.’”

Even if the fuel industry groups had standing to challenge the waiver restoration, their argument that it exceeds the scope of the CAA's waiver provision allowing California to address its specific pollution problems is meritless, the government told the justices. For one thing, the state has had a zero-emissions vehicle program since 1990 to precisely address its air pollution problems, the government said in its brief.

Moreover, the fact that the waiver only covers vehicles through the 2025 model year undercuts the argument that Supreme Court intervention would benefit the fuel groups, the government said in its brief.

“If this court granted certiorari on both questions presented and ultimately held that petitioners have standing, it likely would not issue a merits decision until spring or summer of 2025, when model-year 2026 cars will already be on the road,” the government said in its brief.

In its own brief filed Monday, California largely echoed the federal government's argument that the D.C. Circuit made the right call on fuel industry groups and red states lacking standing to challenge the restoration of the CAA waiver.

Golden State attorneys also said arguments from red states that the CAA waiver authority violates their equal sovereignty are meritless. Congress has enacted laws that treat certain states differently since the nation's founding, and the Constitution allows Congress to adjust federal preemption of state laws based on a state's particular commercial conditions or regulatory history, California said in its brief.

“Congress followed a similar approach here, authorizing California to craft alternative emission standards in certain circumstances in recognition of that state’s experience regulating air pollution and its special pollution challenges,” California said in its brief. “Indeed, Congress’s approach increases options for all states, by giving other states an option to adopt identical standards where appropriate.”

While the Supreme Court mulls the petition over the California waiver, the D.C. Circuit is poised to rule on a companion challenge to the Biden administration's tighter GHG and fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks through the 2025 model year. The appeals court is also home to pending challenges to GHG and fuel economy rules for cars and light trucks starting in the 2026 model year, as well as emissions and fuel economy rules for heavy-duty trucks.

The EPA is represented by Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar of the U.S. Department of Justice.

California is represented by the Office of the Attorney General of California.

The petitioning states are represented by the offices of their respective attorneys general.

The fuel industry petitioners are represented by Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and Sidley Austin LLP, among others.

The cases are Diamond Alternative Energy LLC et al. v. EPA et al., case number 24-7, and State of Ohio et al. v. EPA et al., case number 24-13, in the Supreme Court of the United States.

—Editing by Vaqas Asghar and Marygrace Anderson.