California’s stringent new rules regulating greenhouse gas emissions were scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1 2012. But on Thursday Dec. 29, U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence O’Neill ruled that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard violates the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which reserves regulation of commerce to the federal government and is interpreted as meaning that states cannot interfere in interstate commerce. However, this is precisely what the new regulations by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) would have done, ruled the judge.
The rule uses a life style analysis to determine the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted by a fuel. Fuels produced out-of-state would have a higher score, thus requiring the producers to purchase credits when importing fuel into California. This “discriminates against out-of-state and foreign crude oil while giving an economic advantage to in-state crude oil” and thus violates the Commerce Clause, said the judge. CARB argued that it has a special authority granted by the Clean Air Act to control emissions, which gives it the right to ignore the Commerce Clause. The judge found that argument without merit, and indeed it’s difficult to see how a state regulatory agency can claim it doesn’t need to pay attention to the U.S. Constitution. This would seem to be yet another example of how CARB continually overreaches itself, a claim made by more than a few.
Now, you may be thinking, ‘this is all the doing of the oil companies, using their influence, power, and battalions of lawyers to block important air emissions standards.’ But this is only partly true. Yes, the oil companies oppose the CARB regulations, but so do many other organizations. They include The Rocky Mountain Farmers Union, several farm bureaus in California, the American Trucking Association, and two ethanol producer groups, Growth Energy and the Renewable Fuels Association. So it’s not just oil companies saying the regulations discriminate against out-of-state producers. It’s also farmers and producers of biofuel.
California has just passed a law that’s designed to lower the amount of greenhouse gas pollution the state puts out. The idea is to stop, or at least slow down, the effects of global warming. It’s a little complicated, but here are the details as I see them:
–Businesses in the state need to cut their greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020.
–Industries that are traditionally heavy-polluters, like refineries, power plants, and cement makers, will be required to report on their progress in lowering emissions.
–A state agency, the California Air Resources Board, will be in charge of implementing and enforcing the new regulations.