In a setback for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court has rejected requests to freeze proceedings in a set of pending cases, including one involving California’s long-standing authority to set strict tailpipe emissions for vehicles.
The court, without elaborating, said Thursday it would deny the acting solicitor general’s request to pump the brakes on Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, as well as other cases that center on jurisdiction over Clean Air Act litigation.
The challenge to California’s Clean Air Act waiver is still in the briefing stage. Briefs for the government are due Feb. 26.
Oil and biofuel industry lawyers have asked the justices to yank California’s decades-old waiver, arguing that the state should not be given special privileges to set greenhouse gas emissions standards that are stronger than the federal government’s.
The Golden State had held its waiver for about 50 years before the Trump administration withdrew it. When former President Joe Biden reinstated it in 2022, conservative interests sued and lost in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
But since President Donald Trump has returned to the White House, “EPA’s acting administrator has determined that the agency should reassess the basis for and soundness of the 2022 reinstatement decision,” acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris told the court last month.
Lawyers for the challengers told the justices that while they welcomed the Trump administration’s request for more time, the process to reconsider the waiver reinstatement, “together with subsequent litigation, will likely take years.”
They also argued that the status of California’s waiver has nothing to do with the question the justices had agreed to consider in the case: whether business interests have standing to bring their lawsuit.
The D.C. Circuit last April ruled unanimously that industry groups and Republican-led states lacked standing to bring their claim because they failed to show that tossing out the waiver would fix the injuries they say occurred.
“Although petitioners applaud EPA’s decision to reassess California’s preemption waiver, the question EPA is now reconsidering — the validity of that waiver under Section 209(b) — is entirely distinct from the standing question pending before this court,” wrote Jeffrey Wall, a partner with Sullivan & Cromwell who has represented fuel groups in the case.
D.C. Circuit jurisdiction
The Supreme Court on Thursday also denied the Trump administration’s requests to hit pause on the briefing schedule for disputes over which federal court should hear certain Clean Air Act lawsuits.
In EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, the Biden administration had challenged the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to transfer a biofuels lawsuit to the D.C. Circuit, which handles Clean Air Act cases with national implications.
Harris had said EPA was in the process of reassessing the underlying issue in that case — the agency’s denial of petitions for exemptions to the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard program.
The next filings in the case are due Feb. 20.
The Supreme Court also refused to pause briefing in a consolidated case involving appeals of two lower court decisions, Oklahoma v. EPA and PacifiCorp v. EPA. Both cases center on EPA’s denial of 21 state implementation plans for slashing ozone pollution that crossed state lines.
State and industry challengers had appealed the decision of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to move the litigation to the D.C. Circuit. The two cases were then combined before the Supreme Court.
Harris also sought a pause in briefing in this case because she said EPA was reconsidering the underlying state implementation plan denials. The next filings in the case are due Feb. 18.
A note on the Supreme Court’s Thursday order stated that Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in decisions on the briefing schedule in Oklahoma and PacifiCorp.
The Clean Air Act and California waiver cases are expected to be argued later this term..
