The Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments in a set of cases that seek to move legal battles over certain EPA rules from a federal appeals court in the nation’s capital to regional circuits.
In a short order issued Monday, the justices granted petitions stemming from challenges to EPA’s rejection of state air pollution plans and the agency’s denial of biofuel blending waivers.
Under the Clean Air Act, legal challenges to “nationally applicable” EPA rules land in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit — a bench that is sometimes far removed from the on-the-ground impact of the agency’s regulations and which is dominated by liberal judges.
But for EPA rules without nationwide reach, companies and Republican-led states often prefer to file in other federal appeals courts that may be more favorable to their arguments.
That was the path EPA’s opponents chose in challenging the agency’s rejection of state implementation plans for the federal “good neighbor” smog pollution rule in the Colorado-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and its denial of small refinery exemptions to the Renewable Fuel Program in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Louisiana.
But the 10th Circuit found that the air cases involved actions that were nationwide in scope — and therefore belonged before the D.C. Circuit. The 5th Circuit, meanwhile, denied EPA’s motion to move the biofuels case to the federal appeals court in Washington.
Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in consideration of the petitions related to the good neighbor rule.