The federal district court for the Northern District of Georgia found that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to hear a constitutional challenge to the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act (AIM Act), which requires a phasedown of production and consumption of HFCs through a cap-and-trade program in which the number of government-issued allowances for HFC production or consumption decrease over time. A seller of a hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-based refrigerant alleged that the AIM Act violated the Constitution because it “fails to provide an intelligible principle as to how an executive agency is to identify allowance recipients or to distribute allowances among recipients, resulting in the transfer of legislative power to the Executive Branch” in violation of the nondelegation doctrine. The district court concluded that the Clean Air Act required challenges to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency action under the AIM Act to be filed in the courts of appeals and rejected the seller’s argument that it was not challenging a final agency action.

Refrigerant producers' constitutional challenge to the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020.

RMS of Georgia, LLC d/b/a Choice Refrigerants v. EPA

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Federal District Court Dismissed Nondelegation Challenge to AIM Act’s HFC Cap-and-Trade Program

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Federal District Court Dismissed Nondelegation Challenge to AIM Act’s HFC Cap-and-Trade Program

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Greenhouse gas

Economic sector