PacifiCorp v. Sixkiller

After the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a dormant Commerce Clause challenge to the Washington State Department of Ecology’s (Ecology’s) allocation of compliance allowances for implementation of the Washington Climate Commitment Act’s decarbonization requirements, the owner-operator of an in-state power plant that sold power to out-of-state customers filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court. Ecology’s allocation system provided no-cost allowances for greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity provided to Washington utility customers and required that allowances be purchased at auction for electricity sent out of state. The certiorari petition presented the question of whether a 1997 Supreme Court precedent exempted a state from dormant Commerce Clause scrutiny “when state law imposes different burdens on the same product based on whether product is sold in state or out of state.”