Rocky Mountain Farmers Union v. Corey

The U.S. Supreme Court denied three petitions seeking review of the Ninth Circuit decision that reversed district court rulings that California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) violated the dormant Commerce Clause. Two of the denied petitions were those filed by the parties who had challenged the LCFS; their petitions sought review of the Ninth Circuit’s conclusions that the LCFS did not facially discriminate against interstate commerce and did not constitute extraterritorial regulation. The third was the conditional cross-petition filed by the State of California defendants.

In a conditional cross-petition for writ of certiorari, the State of California defendants sought review on the issues of whether Section 211(c)(4)(B) of the Clean Air Act (authorizing California to set emissions requirements) barred petitioners’ challenges and whether changes to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard regulations’ treatment of 2011 California crude oil sales rendered some aspects of petitioners’ challenges moot.

Two petitions for writs of certiorari were filed in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking review of the Ninth Circuit decision that revived California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS). The petition filed by the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union and other parties associated with the ethanol industry presents two questions: (1) whether the Ninth Circuit erred “in concluding that the [LCFS] does not facially discriminate against interstate commerce” and (2) whether the Ninth Circuit erred “in concluding that the [LCFS] is not an extraterritorial regulation.”

The petition filed by the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers Association, American Trucking Associations, and Consumer Energy Alliance presented one question: “Whether [the LCFS] is unconstitutional because it discriminates against out-of-state fuels and regulates interstate and foreign commerce that occurs wholly outside of California.”