The Biden administration is getting involved in a Supreme Court fight over the proper location for litigation over Clean Air Act standards.
EPA’s new Supreme Court petition asks the justices to find that a federal appeals court in Washington is the exclusive venue for legal battles on issues like the agency’s denial of refiners’ requests for exemptions to the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard requirements.
The request follows a similar plea filed earlier this week by biofuel groups. Petitions from the federal government have traditionally carried special weight with the Supreme Court, which declines to hear most cases that come its way.
Sending RFS cases to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would satisfy the Clean Air Act’s “clear congressional preference for ‘uniform judicial review of regulatory issues of national importance,’” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote on behalf of EPA in the petition obtained by POLITICO.
