Association of Energy Conservation Professionals v. Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board

A Virginia Circuit Court nullified the Virginia State Air Pollution Control Board’s repeal of a regulation that implemented Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a regional cap-and-trade program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the power sector. A 2020 law required Virginia to participate in a market-based trading program consistent with RGGI and directed the Department of Environmental Quality to incorporate the 2020 law’s provisions into a regulation to bring Virginia into RGGI. The court found that an association of weatherization professionals had standing to challenge the repeal because the association’s members would be injured by being deprived of funding through a Weatherization Deferral Repair program funded by RGGI revenues, an injury that was fairly traceable to the repeal and redressable by the court. On the merits, the court ruled that neither the 2020 law nor any other law gave the respondents authority to repeal the regulation.