IGas Holdings, Inc. v. EPA

A company that imports, produces, and sells refrigerants—which contended that EPA’s allocation rule gave other entities, including end-users such as the government, more than 20% of the company’s market share—argued in its rehearing petition that en banc review was warranted to consider the whether the AIM Act provided insufficient guidance to EPA in violation of the nondelegation doctrine; that the panel disregarded statutory text and interpretation principles and improperly deferred to EPA to supply “an intelligible principle that is otherwise lacking”; and that the EPA rule was at odds with the court’s interpretation of the AIM Act.

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Less than two months after denying challenges to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule setting an allocation methodology for hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) allowances for 2024 through 2028 as part of the cap-and-trade program to implement the HFC phasedown required by the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act (AIM Act), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for panel rehearing or rehearing en banc filed by a company that imports, produces, and sells refrigerants. No member of the court requested a vote on the petition for rehearing en banc.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule setting an allocation methodology for hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) allowances for 2024 through 2028 as part of the cap-and-trade program to implement the HFC phasedown required by the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act (AIM Act). The court rejected a claim that the AIM Act unconstitutionally delegated legislative power to EPA, finding that “Congress provided ample direction to guide the EPA’s exercise of discretion” in deciding how to allocate the HFC allowances. The court also found that EPA used a reasonable allocation methodology.