Supreme Court Weighs States’, Refineries’ Appeals Against EPA

Challengers say the high court should clarify Clean Air Act instructions about where to file appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on Feb. 10, 2025. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 25 heard two regulatory appeals centering on which courts should have authority to try lawsuits that challenge Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) actions.

The court first heard EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, followed by a second oral argument in the related cases of Oklahoma v. EPA and PacifiCorp v. EPA, which were consolidated and heard together.

The federal Clean Air Act steers challenges to “nationally applicable regulations,” along with actions that have “nationwide scope or effect,” to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The statute also directs challenges to EPA actions that are “locally or regionally applicable” to regional federal courts of appeals.

During oral argument on March 25, the justices pondered what happens when the challenged regulatory action presents both local and national implications.

EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining is about which federal court of appeals is the proper forum for small oil refineries’ appeals against the EPA’s denial of an exemption from the Clean Air Act’s renewable fuel standard program. The program imposes a federal mandate that the gasoline that refineries produce must contain a specified percentage of ethanol.

The company favored having the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit hear the case. The EPA argued the case should be heard by the D.C. Circuit, but the Fifth Circuit found in November 2023 that it was the proper forum for the appeal.

In Oklahoma v. EPA, the state is challenging the EPA’s “good neighbor” ozone regulation on states whose industries are said to be contributing to smog.

Oklahoma said in its petition that the Clean Air Act requires each state to adopt an implementation plan to comply with national standards, which the EPA then reviews. In 2023, the EPA rejected 23 states’ plans for meeting national ozone standards and created its own plan.

In February 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed with the EPA, finding that the case should be heard by the D.C. Circuit.

In June 2024, the Supreme Court voted 5–4 to put the rule on hold temporarily.

The Supreme Court held that the emissions-reduction standards established by a federal plan would probably cause irreversible harm to several of the affected states unless the plan were stayed until it could be reviewed by the lower courts.

The nation’s highest court stayed the plan, pending review by the D.C. Circuit.

Led by Ohio, the states said the regulation was costly and could lead to blackouts, while the EPA said the rule was urgently needed to fight air pollution.

The coalition of states also said the EPA’s plan is an illegal overreach that undermines the principles of the Clean Air Act, which allows states leeway to propose their air pollution control measures.

During the oral argument about the Oklahoma case, Deputy U.S. Solicitor General Malcolm Stewart said Oklahoma’s case regarding the “good neighbor” rule should go to the circuit court in Washington because that is the will of lawmakers.

“The fact that the D.C. Circuit is the centralized forum, that’s the choice of Congress,” he said.

Oklahoma’s attorney, Mithun Mansinghani, said his state’s appeal should be dealt with by a regional federal appeals court.

“EPA actions to approve or disapprove state implementation plans are the prototypical action reviewed in the regional circuit,” the lawyer said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch said the D.C. Circuit may be better suited to hear the case.

Air pollution “crosses the country in ways that don’t respect our jurisdictional boundaries between circuits,” he said.

“We’re going to have different interpretations of the statute with ... different circuits and all these terrible splits ... and, gosh, we won’t have the immediate resolution of the D.C. Circuit that we could have,” Gorsuch said.

During oral argument about the refineries’ dispute, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said lawmakers haven’t made it easy for attorneys to know how to proceed.

“So I understand the general concern about simplicity, but it appears that Congress did not share that concern with respect to this statute [i.e., the Clean Air Act] because it’s very complicated,” she said.

Gorsuch said that choosing a judicial forum should be “easy ... to figure out at the outset of a case and shouldn’t involve undue litigation.”

Stewart said, “Clearly, Congress wanted there to be a meaningful role for the D.C. Circuit, not just in reviewing the actions that are enumerated as nationally applicable.”

Justice Elena Kagan said the Supreme Court may go in opposite directions in the two appeals.

“I have a pretty strong intuition—I won’t tell you what it is—about both of these cases. And one goes one way and one goes the other way,” she said. “Because, one, everything is being decided by the nationwide determination; and the other, pretty much nothing is being decided by the nationwide determination.”

The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the cases by the end of June.