Supreme Court dismisses constitutional claim in California air pollution case

David G. Savage, Los Angeles Times on Dec 16, 2024

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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a red-state constitutional challenge to California's special authority to fight air pollution.

Over a dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court turned away an appeal from Ohio and 16 other conservative states, which asked the court to rule "the Golden State is not a golden child."

Although Monday's brief order closes the door on a constitutional challenge to California's anti-pollution standards, the court on Friday cleared the way for a different, more targeted legal challenge.

The oil and gas industry is suing over the state's "zero emissions" goals for new vehicles, arguing California's special authority to fight air pollution does not extend to greenhouse gases and global warming.

The D.C. Circuit Court in Washington dismissed that suit in April on the grounds that the oil producers had no standing to sue. Their complaint was they would sell less fuel in the future.

On Friday, the justices agreed to reconsider that ruling early next year. They could clear the way for the suit to proceed.

Monday's related order narrows the legal grounds that the industry can use to challenge California's rule, assuming it eventually wins standing.

"The big relief for California, right now, is that the Supreme Court is not going to rule on the substance of whether California has the authority to issue greenhouse gas emission standards for vehicles," said Ann Carlson, the founding director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change & the Environment at UCLA.

"Since the 1960s, California indisputably has had the authority to regulate conventional pollutants from vehicles," Carlson said. And California air regulators have long maintained that the Los Angeles smog problem is so severe that electric vehicles are necessary to comply with the anti-pollution standards, she said.

When the Supreme Court takes up the oil industry's claims early next year, the incoming Trump administration is likely to intervene on the side of the industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency must grant the state a waiver to go beyond the federal standards for vehicles, and President-elect Donald Trump's appointees are unlikely to support California's preferred policy.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar had urged the court to turn down both appeals. They said California's strict emissions standards are designed to fight smog and other air pollution as well as greenhouse gases.

They argued that Congress had ample authority under the Constitution to set special rules for problems in different states.

Since early in American history, they said, Congress has approved special customs duties for some states or rules involving tribes relations.

In challenging California's authority, Ohio Atty. Gen. David Yost pointed to the court's 2013 decision that struck down part of the Voting Rights Act on the grounds that it violated the principle of equal state sovereignty.

When Congress adopted national air pollution standards in 1967, it said California could go further because it was already enforcing strict standards to combat the state's worst-in-the-nation problem with smog.

Ohio and other red states say this special authority violates "core constitutional principles because no state is more equal than the others. And Congress does not have the general power to elevate one state above the others. ... Yet in the Clean Air Act, Congress elevated California above all the other states by giving to the Golden State alone the power to pass certain environmental laws."

Without commenting, the justices said they would not hear the constitutional claim.

The Environmental Defense Fund hailed the court's announcement.

"California's clean car standards have successfully helped reduce the dangerous soot, smog, and climate pollution that put all people at risk, while also turbocharging clean technologies and job creation," said Alice Henderson, lead counsel for its clean-air policy group.

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(Times staff writer Tony Briscoe contributed to this report.)

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