Supreme Court to hear emissions case
Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC v. EPA
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - A Supreme Court case could dramatically overhaul emissions standards in the United States.
Petroleum sellers say California has too large of a role in car manufacturing.
A decades old law carves out two separate emissions standards for U.S. states to use.
One set by the EPA – and one set by California.
A court case could ultimately remove California from that equation.
Attorney Sean Donahue says the section of the Clean Air Act that allows California to set it’s own emissions standards has been critical to U.S. auto development since the 1960s.
“It has lead to most of the most important advances in vehicle emission control that we have in the country, including catalytic converters and all kinds of life saving technologies.”
Petroleum producers sued over the law, saying the California standards were hurting business by shifting the market toward electric cars.
But a lower court ruled the market has already shifted toward electric cars so much, the petroleum producers could not prove the law negatively impacted profits.
Attorney Sean Donahue explains, “And so even if the challengers, in this case, the fuel companies won their litigation, it wouldn’t result in any benefit to them in of more gasoline because the market was already well beyond what the regulations require.”
The CATO Institute’s Tommy Berry says that court’s ruling was incorrect.
“When products are banned or limited that use a certain other product, it’s obvious that banning the product that uses it. In this case, banning liquid fuel producing cars, is going to hurt the field of liquids fuel producers.
So despite the original case being about California’s emissions standards – the Supreme Court must decide if petroleum producers are allowed to sue in the first place.
CATO’s Berry says denying standing could set a dangerous precedent.
“Everybody sues the government at some point or another, and overly restrictive standing rules get in the way of that.”
The court hears arguments Wednesday, April 23 at 10am ET.
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