Natural Resources Defense Council v. Perry

The district court denied the stay motions on March 13 (DOE) and March 30 (AHRI). DOE must submit the regulations for publication by April 10.

The plaintiffs—environmental and consumer groups and states—argued that delaying the emissions reductions that would result from the implementation of the standards would harm the plaintiffs and the public.

DOE and AHRI asked the district court to stay the order pending appeal, arguing that manufacturers would be harmed by having to incur costs to comply with the standards, and that temporarily delaying the regulations would cause the plaintiffs minimal harm.

The federal district court for the Northern District of California ordered the U.S. Department of Energy to publish energy conservation standards adopted in December 2016 that had never taken effect because DOE failed to publish them in the Federal Register. The standards are for portable air conditioners, air compressors, commercial packaged boilers, and uninterruptible power supplies. DOE estimated that the standards would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 99 million metric tons and save consumers and businesses $8.4 billion over a 30-year period. The court found that DOE’s failure to publish the standards violated its non-discretionary duty under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act to publish an energy standard in the Federal Register at the end of an error-correction process specified in the regulations. The court rejected the argument the regulations preserved “free-standing authority” for DOE to continue to assess, modify, or withdraw energy standards or created only a discretionary obligation.

NRDC, Sierra Club, and Consumer Federation of America filed a lawsuit in the federal district court for the Northern District of New York challenging the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) failure to publish final energy efficiency standards for certain categories of consumer and industrial equipment. The environmental and consumer groups asserted that DOE had violated the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, and the Federal Register Act by failing to submit the standards for publication in the Federal Register and had failed to meet statutory deadlines for issuing standards for uninterruptible power supplies and walk-in coolers and freezers. The relief sought by the plaintiffs included an order compelling DOE to send the new standards to the Office of Federal Register for immediate publication.