Iowa v. James

Iowa, Missouri, and the American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Eastern District of Missouri against the New York Attorney General and the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) challenging the Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program established by NYSDEC in a rule promulgated in December 2025. The plaintiffs alleged that New York’s rule imposes reporting requirements, compliance costs, and potential criminal and civil penalties for activity occurring outside New York, including requirements for fuel suppliers such as ethanol and biodiesel producers and distributors to report the amount of liquid fuel that may be sold in New York regardless of where the initial sale or production occurs. The complaint asserted that New York’s rule violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on extraterritorial state regulation and was preempted by the Clean Air Act. They also asserted that the rule violated the due process rights of persons and companies by subjecting them to regulatory jurisdiction even though they lack “minimum contacts” with New York related to the conduct subject to the rule. In addition, they asserted that the rule violated the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches by authorizing NYSDEC to conduct warrantless inspection of real property at which an emission source exists.

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