Supreme Court justices struggled Tuesday to sort out when disputes over EPA’s application of the Clean Air Act should be settled in regional courts or be handled as nationwide rulings.
In spirited arguments at the high court, justices peppered lawyers in combined cases that will determine whether lawsuits over biofuel blending mandates and ozone pollution go to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — the “hometown court for EPA,” as one of the lawyers noted — or be ironed out in regional circuits.
Although the cases are about different regulations, both challenged justices to interpret complicated standards for what’s national in scope or limited to regions where the circuit courts are located.
The biofuels case, EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, seemed the most frustrating to the justices. In that dispute, petroleum refineries are challenging the environmental agency’s denial of economic hardship waivers under the renewable fuel standard, which requires refiners to blend ethanol with gasoline.
EPA denied dozens of such petitions in one published decision in 2022. Six refineries sued in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which denied a request by the agency to move the case to the D.C. Circuit.
EPA, supported by biofuel groups, argued its actions were national in scope. The petroleum refiners said they should be treated as individual actions reviewable by regional courts, which tend to be less deferential to EPA.
Several factors help determine where cases should land, and justices appeared troubled by how to disentangle them. At one point, Justice Neil Gorsuch said he was “struggling” with the analysis because EPA had made a “complete sea change” in how it weighs refineries’ requests to be spared the biofuel mandate, which is part of the renewable fuel standard.
That matters, government lawyers said, because a change in the regulatory agency’s approach would have national implications and thus support having disputes heard in the D.C. Circuit. Had the criteria been in place for years, it would presumably have been tested in courts and perhaps not have been as compelling an argument for national review, Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said.
On top of that problem, Gorsuch and other justices said the case seemed to throw complications at what might otherwise be a simple matter of where challenges ought to be heard. Generally, Gorsuch said, questions of a lawsuit’s venue are supposed to be easy from the start so parties know where to make their arguments.
At another point as Stewart made his arguments, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she was “having almost an impossible time” around one aspect: how EPA could bundle denials of specific refineries’ waiver petitions — which are made based on their particular situations — and call that a nationwide decision.
Justice Elena Kagan broke in at another point and said Stewart appeared to be making the case more complicated than she’d expected, adding, “It seems like a lot simpler than what you’re pitching.”
There’s always some nationwide implication in the mix with such agency actions, Kagan said. “I have a pretty strong intuition — I won’t tell you what it is — about both of these cases. And one goes one way, and one goes the other way.”
A lawyer for biofuel groups, Seth Waxman, made the case that EPA decisions on the waivers — which the groups oppose — are by nature national in scope, since allowing any refinery a one-year exemption affects biofuel volumes that are set nationally.
That argument is for “a rule across the board with respect to all exemptions,” Waxman said.
Whether EPA sticks with the denials remains to be seen, as they were an action of the Biden administration. EPA said it’s reviewing the situation.
The ozone cases presented similar questions without as many expressions of frustration from the court.
Stewart managed a light moment as well, joking that if the D.C. Circuit is viewed as EPA’s “hometown court,” then the Supreme Court’s location in the nation’s capital might make it the EPA’s hometown court, “and I’ve never had that perception.”
In those combined cases from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Oklahoma v. EPA and PacifiCorp v. EPA, the agency denied 21 state implementation plans for reducing ozone pollution. State and industry groups opposed the 10th Circuit Court’s decision to hand the case to the D.C. Circuit.
Although that case as well rests on the complexity of the proper venue, Gorsuch started off the questioning by noting, “If anything is nationwide, it is air pollution, because it travels.”
Industry groups, though, argued that EPA uses “venue manipulation” to steer cases toward the D.C. Circuit. It does that, said Misha Tseytlin, a lawyer for PacifiCorp, by packaging actions together in one formal notice and calling it national in scope. But state implementation plans by nature are state-specific, he said.
“Those are decisions made by the states, how to control pollution coming from sources in the state,” Tseytlin said.
In both cases, justices touched on the degree of deference EPA has in determining where disputes about its decisions are heard. But Stewart pushed back on the notion, saying that while the agency can influence whether cases are steered to a centralized court, it’s Congress’ choice — not the agency’s — to make that place the D.C. Circuit.
