Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council v. EPA

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In an unpublished judgment, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed petitions for review that challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) denial in April 2022 of petitions requesting that the agency reconsider its 2009 finding that the greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles contribute to climate change and thus endanger public health and welfare. The D.C. Circuit found that that the petitioners—Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council and the FAIR Energy Foundation—failed to establish standing because they did not provide evidence that they or any of their members had been injured by the 2009 endangerment finding. The court found that their theories of representational and organizational standing were “fatally flawed.”

Two organizations that unsuccessfully challenged EPA’s denial of their petition to reconsider the 2009 endangerment finding for greenhouse gases from motor vehicles filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. The question presented by their petition was whether a consumer group challenging a federal agency action can establish the “injury in fact” element of standing with “an evidentiary showing that the policies mandated by that agency action have resulted in large increases in consumer prices in the places where they have been implemented.”