The U.S. Supreme Court won't yet take up the question of whether California can set its own emissions rules for cars under the Constitution.
But the high court has signalled it may decide other states have the right to ultimately challenge that power in court, which the states argue unconstitutionally allows California to essentially use its population size and economic heft to force everyone else in the country to live by those standards, undermining the principles of federalism.
On Dec. 13, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a short one-sentence order agreeing to take up the question of whether a group of Republican-led states, in partnership with energy companies, have the constitutional right ultimately to sue to force the federal government to forever end the longstanding waiver granted to California by the EPA to regulate vehicle emissions and fuel efficiency.
Since the 1960s, from the earliest days of the landmark federal Clean Air Act, California secured a special waiver from federal vehicle emissions standards, allowing the Golden State to impose stricter regulations than those required by federal law.
In granting California the expanded authority, the federal Environmental Protection Agency said the waiver was needed to allow California the regulatory flexibility to address its supposedly unique pollution problems, exacerbated by its geography and the large number of vehicles on its roadways.
In the decades since, other states have been given the opportunity to either abide by federal tailpipe emissions standards or adopt rules matching California's. To date, 17 other states and the District of Columbia have adopted California's emissions standards and goals. Those states include Colorado, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Oregon and Pennsylvania, among others.
However, as California's economy and population has grown in the ensuing decades, its buying power relative to the rest of the country has essentially allowed California the outsized power to set vehicle emission standards for the rest of the country, and much of the world.
Automakers would neither make vehicles that would be unique to California, but neither would they willingly surrender the ability to sell cars in the Golden State's massive markets.
During the first administration of President Donald Trump, the EPA sought to rescind California's waiver, which would force the state and its follower states to abide by the relatively less stringent federal Clean Air rules.
That decision was driven by the urgings of oil companies and others, who have said California's new goals to ultimately eradicate internal combustion cars and trucks would result in the state being able to force the rest of the country to go along with its goals, regardless of the will of the people in those other states.
California challenged that decision in federal court, arguing only Congress could revoke its waiver, not a federal agency, because it was granted under a provision of the Clean Air Act itself.
But while that lawsuit was still in court, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden reinstated the waiver.
That decision, in turn, triggered legal action from a coalition of oil and other energy companies, including the National Association of Convenience Stores; corn and soybean grower associations; and a group of 17 Republican-led states, including Texas and Ohio, who argued the provision of the Clean Air Act under which California was awarded a waiver, known as Section 209, is unconstitutional.
They argue Section 209 violates the bedrock federalist principle of the Constitution, which states that the federal government must treat all states the same, regardless of their size and market share.
In defending its waiver, California has been joined by a coalition of Democrat-led states, including New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois, among others.
The state of Florida has remained on the sidelines, to this point.
The lawsuit was dismissed at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which handles such disputes among the states regarding federal law.
In that ruling, the D.C. Circuit judges determined the plaintiffs lacked constitutional standing to bring their action challenging the constitutionality of Section 209 and California's waiver.
Specifically, the D.C. Circuit concluded "fuel producers’ injuries were not redressable because they had not established that vacating EPA’s waiver would have any effect on automakers."
The oil companies and other private plaintiffs said that reasoning was deficient on multiple counts and petitioned the Supreme Court to review that decision.
On Dec. 13, the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case.
Specifically, the court agreed to take up the narrow question on which the D.C. Circuit Court tossed the states' and energy companies' challenge, which is presented in the petition as:
"Whether a party may establish the redressability component of Article III standing by relying on the coercive and predictable effects of regulation on third parties."
The court declined, for now, to take up the constitutional question of whether California's waiver itself is "unlawful."
However, a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of those challenging California's waiver could set the stage, ultimately, for the court to take up the case on the merits and potentially lead to a reversal of California's waiver and the economic and regulatory power held by the California Air Resource Board and other state regulators, altogether.