April 9, 2024: Today, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) reinstatement of California’s authorization to establish zero emission vehicle mandates and stronger greenhouse gas emission limits than EPA for light-duty vehicles (also known as the California “waiver”). Sierra Club was an intervenor in the litigation in support of EPA because this case has implications far beyond California: more than a third of states have elected to adopt and implement the California clean vehicle standards at risk in this case.
Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is tasked with establishing emissions standards for new motor vehicles. California is the only state authorized to establish its own distinct standards so long as those standards are feasible and at least as stringent as the federal standards. These California-specific standards can only be enforced once the state seeks and obtains a waiver from EPA. A separate provision of the Clean Air Act allows states other than California to opt into the more protective California vehicle standards.
Although EPA had granted California a waiver in 2013, it withdrew that waiver in 2018 following the change in Administration-- the first time in the Clean Air Act’s 50-year history that EPA had withdrawn California’s authority to set its own vehicle standards. Sierra Club, along with a number of other groups and supportive states, sued EPA and, in 2021, President Biden’s EPA moved to reinstate it. A number of states and petroleum and ethanol interests then sued EPA in the D.C. Circuit, seeking to invalidate the waiver reinstatement.
Following extensive briefing and a multi-hour oral argument in September 2023, the court released its decision on April 9, 2024. The court unanimously rejected petitioners’ challenges to the waiver reinstatement.
The court rejected most of the petitioners’ claims on grounds that they could not show they had standing to challenge the California waiver because they had not established that their alleged economic injuries would be ameliorated by a favorable ruling (no redressability). The court also rejected states’ remaining argument that the Clean Air Act provisions authorizing California to establish its own vehicle emissions program violated the constitutional principle of “equal sovereignty” among the states by singling California out for special treatment. The court concluded that identical treatment of states is not a requirement of the relevant constitutional provisions or the federal Clean Air Act.
This victory has significant implications for efforts to promote cleaner vehicles not only in California, but in states all over the country. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia had opted to adopt the California clean vehicle standards at issue in this litigation. Many of those states rely on implementation of the California vehicle standards to help achieve health-based national ambient air quality standards. Without being able to opt into the more protective California clean vehicle standards, air quality in these states would be jeopardized. While it is likely that petitioners will pursue an appeal to the Supreme Court, the fact that the court ruled largely on procedural grounds will likely make the case less attractive for the Court to take up. If the Court does take it up, Sierra Club expects to be fully engaged in the appeal.
Sierra Club was represented in this case by Environmental Law Program attorneys Josh Berman, Joanne Spalding, and Andrea Issod, outside counsel Vera Pardee, and Earthjustice attorneys Paul Cort and Regina Hsu. Sierra Club attorneys helped edit the briefing and participated in moot courts with the California Attorney General’s Office, who argued the case.