Politics
JUST IN: Supreme Court Issues Major 7-2 Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday shattered the dreams of California’s climate justice warriors in a decision that saw one of the three liberal justices side against them.
In a 7-2 ruling, the high court allowed the state’s energy producers to pursue their lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as they seek to undo state laws regulating the number of electric vehicles that must be sold before 2035, the point at which California hopes to become carbon neutral.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, suggested that the EV mandates are “stringent” and a potentially “unlawful” targeting of a specific industry by the government.
“The government generally may not target a business or industry through stringent and allegedly unlawful regulation, and then evade the resulting lawsuits by claiming that the targets of its regulation should be locked out of court as unaffected bystanders,” said Kavanaugh. “In light of this Court’s precedents and the evidence before the Court of Appeals, the fuel producers established Article III standing to challenge EPA’s approval of the California regulations.”
Critically, the “EPA has repeatedly altered its legal position on whether the Clean Air Act authorizes California regulations targeting greenhouse-gas emissions from new motor vehicles,” Kavanaugh noted.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump signed three resolutions undoing large swaths of California’s green energy mandates, virtually eviscerating the liberal state’s ability to become net-zero within 10 years. The move was a gut-punch for Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is expected to run for president in 2028 and has touted signing into law the most aggressive climate legislation in the country.
“This case involves California’s 2012 request for EPA approval of new California regulations,” he wrote. “As relevant here, those regulations generally require automakers (i) to limit average greenhouse-gas emissions across their fleets of new motor vehicles sold in the State and (ii) to manufacture a certain percentage of electric vehicles as part of their vehicle fleets.”
Chet Thompson, president and CEO of American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), which brought the suit, celebrated the decision.
“The Supreme Court put to rest any question about whether fuel manufacturers have a right to challenge unlawful electric vehicle mandates,” he said in a statement to the Daily Caller. “California’s EV mandates are unlawful and bad for our country. Congress did not give California special authority to regulate greenhouse gases, mandate electric vehicles or ban new gas car sales—all of which the state has attempted to do through its intentional misreading of statute.”
