CARB calls for stay on injunction for low carbon fuel standard

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) has asked the US District Court for the Eastern District of California to stay its injunction it issued at the end of last year to stop CARB’s introduction of the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).

Judge Lawrence O'Neill, who implemented the injunction, says he did so because he believes the LCFS ‘violates the commerce clause of the US Constitution’.

At the beginning of January, CARB appealed against the judge’s decision with the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, although the Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) says it was happy with the injunction.

‘Judge O'Neill's ruling clearly established that the LCFS significantly overreaches by attempting to regulate commerce in states outside of California,’ says RFA president Bob Dinneen. ‘We are confident Judge O'Neill's ruling will stand, particularly as he outlined other specific actions the state of California could take to regulate carbon emissions that would not infringe upon the business practices of entities outside of California's borders.’

In December, two arguments were put forward which challenged the constitutionality of the LCFS. These were:

•             That the LCFS discriminates against interstate commerce in ethanol because it assigns worse carbon-intensity scores to Midwest ethanol than to California ethanol

•             That the LCFS attempts to regulate conduct occurring wholly outside the borders of the state of California and is thus impermissibly extraterritorial.

The Court says that CARB cannot hold responsibility, both political and legal, for commercial incidents happening outside of the state of California.