Ethanol and petroleum producers seeking to topple California's low-carbon fuel standard argued in federal court that a temporary ban on the program should continue.

California's program, which gives carbon scores to transportation fuels in an attempt to lower greenhouse gas emissions, would hurt Midwestern ethanol if allowed to proceed, producers argued in filings yesterday.

The program is on hold after U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O'Neill in Fresno ruled in December that the program violates the Constitution's commerce clause, which prohibits states from discriminating against interstate trade. The regulation assigns carbon scores to each type of fuel, and most ethanol from the Midwest has a higher score than California-produced ethanol, in part because it is transported over greater distances and uses different electricity sources.

The state Air Resources Board asked O'Neill to stay his injunction in January, then took it to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month when he refused (ClimateWire, Feb. 13). The standard, in force since last year, accounts for about 10 percent, or 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, of the state's overall goal of reaching 1990 greenhouse gas emissions levels by 2020.

In yesterday's filing, the Renewable Fuels Association, Growth Energy and other groups argued that the California Air Resources Board was contradicting itself. If the interruption of the fuel standard is causing harm by increasing emissions, they said, then it would also harm Midwestern ethanol if allowed to continue.

"Those arguments cannot be squared with defendants' position in this court -- that a stay will benefit California -- because the ostensible environmental benefit from enforcing the LCFS is to force reductions in Midwest corn ethanol production and thus reduce GHG emissions supposedly associated with that production," they wrote.

Separately, petroleum producers and users argued that the regulation would just send more energy-intensive fuels to out-of-state markets.

"The motion should be denied because a stay pending appeal will not reduce global GHG emissions," wrote American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, the American Trucking Associations and the Consumer Energy Alliance.