Citizens Climate Lobby v. California Air Resources Board

A California state court upheld state regulators’ authority to use carbon offset projects as a compliance tool under the State’s economy-wide greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program. The lawsuit alleged, among other things, that the offset projects did not ensure that the emission reductions would be “additional” to those otherwise achieved under the law. The court rejected the petition, holding that the Global Warming Solutions Act gave the California Air Resources Board vast discretion to develop regulations to curb greenhouse gas emissions and that the evidence demonstrated that the agency’s use of the standards-based approach in developing the carbon offset protocol was consistent with the law.

Several citizens’ groups filed a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB), alleging that its carbon dioxide offset regulations violated AB 32, otherwise known as the California Global Warming Solutions Act. The lawsuit alleged that the offset protocols allowed non-additional credits to qualify as offsets, that CARB’s definitions for “conservative” and “business-as-usual” had the potential to be interpreted in more than one way, that the regulations themselves were not enforceable, and that the provisions violated AB 32’s integrity standards.