Association of Irritated Residents v. California Air Resources Board

On September 28, 2011, the California Supreme Court rejected the petition by plaintiffs to grant a temporary stay of CARB’s implementation of AB 32 pending the plaintiffs’ appeal of the June 2011 decision.  Thus the program may go into effect.

A California appellate court held that CARB did not violate the statutory requirements of the Global Warming Solutions Act, otherwise known as AB 32, in approving a strategy to implement the statute.  In particular, the court held that CARB did not disregard the law or act arbitrarily or capriciously in adopting the scoping plan.

A California state appellate court granted CARB’s request for a stay of a May 2011 injunction that had stopped its work implementing the state’s cap-and-trade program.  The court lifted the injunction imposed by the trial court following that court’s holding that CARB had not adequately weighed alternatives to the cap-and-trade system and other measures when it adopted a strategy to implement AB 32.  [Editor’s note: Shortly after this decision was issued, CARB announced that it was nonetheless postponing the start of the cap-and-trade program by one year.]

The court approved an expanded environmental analysis of alternatives to a cap and trade program for implementing AB 32.

On May 23, 2011, CARB appealed the order.

On May 20, 2011, a California state court issued an order holding that CARB must not take any additional steps to implement its greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program until it completes an adequate environmental analysis of the program.