Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council v. EPA

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied petitions for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc of its May 2023 decision finding that Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council and FAIR Energy Foundation did not have standing to challenge the denial of their petition requesting that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reconsider the 2009 Clean Air Act endangerment finding for greenhouse gases from motor vehicles.

In an unpublished judgment, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed petitions for review that challenged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) denial in April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 petitions were filed in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals seeking review of EPA’s <a href="https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-04/decision_document.pdf">denial</a> of petitions for reconsideration of EPA’s 2009 Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act (2009 Endangerment Finding). EPA denied four petitions regarding the 2009 Endangerment Finding in April 2022, after initially denying them on January 19, 2021 “with a very brief discussion” and subsequently withdrawing that denial. In the April 2022 denial, EPA explained its conclusion that the petitioners “have provided inadequate, erroneous, and deficient arguments and evidence for their assertions that the underlying science supporting the 2009 Endangerment Finding is flawed, misinterpreted, or inappropriately applied by EPA.” EPA also disagreed that reconsideration was warranted due to procedural deficiencies. The D.C. Circuit proceedings were brought by the submitters of two of the reconsideration petitions.