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Supreme Court OKs challenge to California stricter emission standards
1 of 2 | Electric cars sit on a Tesla parking lot in Fremont, Calif. (May 2020). Fossil fuel companies can challenge California's stricter standards to reduce pollution from vehicles, the U.S Supreme Court ruled Friday. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo
June 20 (UPI) -- Fossil fuel companies can challenge California setting stricter emissions standards for cars, the U.S Supreme Court ruled Friday.
California has stipulated that only zero-emission cars will be able to sold there by 2035, with a phased increase in ZEV requirements for model years 2026-2035. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a fleet-wide average of 49 mpg by model year 2026, with higher standards in the following years.
In the 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court ruled that oil producers have legal standing to sue over California's clean car standards approved by the U.S. EPA. Dissenting were Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two of the court's three Democratic-appointed justices.
"This case concerns only standing, not the merits," Kavanaugh wrote in the 48-page opinion that included two dissents. "EPA and California may or may not prevail on the merits in defending EPA's approval of the California regulations. But the justiciability of the fuel producers' challenge to EPA's approval of the California regulations is evident."
The Clean Air Act supersedes state laws that regulate motor vehicle emissions, but it allows the EPA to issue a waiver for California. Other states can copy California's stricter standard.
The states are Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and the District of Columbia.
The EPA, when Barack Obama was president, granted a waiver for California, but President Trump partially withdrew it during his first term.
When Joe Biden became president in 2021, the EPA reinstated the waiver with the tougher emissions.
Last week, Trump signed a bi-partisan congressional resolution to rescind California's electric vehicle mandate. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, called this move illegal and will sue over this order.
"You couldn't buy any other car except an electric-powered car, and in California, they have blackouts and brownouts," Trump said last week. "They don't have enough electricity right now to do the job. And, countrywide, you'd have to spend four trillion dollars to build the firing plants, charging plants."
Gasoline and other liquid fuel producers and 17 Republic-led states sued, arguing California's regulations reduce the manufacturing of gas-powered cars. The lead plaintiff was Diamond Alternative Energy, which sells renewable diesel, an alternative to traditional petroleum-derived diesel. Valero Energy Corp. also joined in the suit.
Automakers were involved in the case.
California lawyers argue the producers have no legal standing, which requires showing that a favorable court ruling would redress a plaintiff's injury.
The EPA said consumer demand for electric cars would exceed California's mandate and hence the regulations wouldn't have an impact.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the lawsuit.
"If invalidating the regulations would change nothing in the market, why are EPA and California enforcing and defending the regulations?" Kavanaugh wrote.
"The whole point of the regulations is to increase the number of electric vehicles in the new automobile market beyond what consumers would otherwise demand and what automakers would otherwise manufacture and sell."
Sotomayor and Jackson separately wrote the case may become moot.
"I see no need to expound on the law of standing in a case where the sole dispute is a factual one not addressed below," Sotomayor wrote.
She said she would have sent the case back to the lower court to look at the issue again.
Jackson said her colleagues weren't applying the standing doctrine evenhandedly and it can erode public trust in judges.
"This case gives fodder to the unfortunate perception that moneyed interests enjoy an easier road to relief in this Court than ordinary citizens. Because the Court had ample opportunity to avoid that result, I respectfully dissent," Jackson wrote.
The ruling does not prevent California and other states from enforcing standards, Vickie Patton, general counsel of the Environmental Defense Fund, told The Guardian.
"The standards have saved hundreds of lives, have provided enormous health benefits, and have saved families money," Patton said. "While the Supreme Court has now clarified who has grounds to bring a challenge to court, the decision does not affect California's bedrock legal authority to adopt pollution safeguards, nor does it alter the life-saving, affordable, clean cars program itself."
