The Supreme Court appears poised to maintain at least some Clean Air Law disputes in federal courts other than DC. At least one justice is hindering what is called the “home court superiority” of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The judiciary heard the pair on Tuesday whether certain Clean Air Law disputes should be heard in federal courts in D.C. or in federal courts in various regions around the country.
Certain district courts may be more conservative or liberal ideologically bent, depending on which president appointed that justice.
The Clean Air Act states that “nationally applicable” decisions made under it should be heard in the DC Circuit, and that “locally or regionally applicable” decisions should be reviewed by the Circuit Court of competent jurisdiction over that area.
The law also includes exceptions to locally applied decisions that the EPA administrator determines are based on a “national scope or effectiveness determination.”
The first lawsuit heard by the court on Tuesday was about the appropriate location of the EPA's decision regarding biofuel blending requirements for oil refineries.
The EPA recently refused an exemption from oil refineries.
The federal government argued that the challenges to such decisions should be weighed in DC to prevent “waste judicial resources and increase the risk of inconsistent outcomes,” according to Deputy Director Malcolm Stewart.
However, lawyers representing oil refineries argued that the EPA's denial of the biofuel fusion exemption request was a local decision affecting individual refineries.
During this interrogation, the conservative majority of the courts appeared to be more likely to hear such disputes in the Regional Circuit Courts.
“You're asking us to change our historical practices quite radically,” Judge Neil Gorsuch told a government lawyer at one point.
Meanwhile, Samuel Alito has pushed back the argument that the EPA should get some respect under the law.
“Isn't it very strange to say that when deciding whether there is a venue in a certain location, the court should postpone it?
The second lawsuit addressed by the court considered similar issues. Whether the state's refusal of a state's air quality plan under the Clean Air Act should be addressed by the state's locality or the DC circuit.
The two cases deal with similar issues, but it is not clear whether the judge will see them the same.
“Well, if there is, if it has an impact nationwide, it has to be air pollution because it travels,” Gorsuch said.
Meanwhile, during the first slate of discussion, Elena Kagan of liberal justice signaled that she felt the case should be determined in a different way.
“I have a very strong intuition – I don't tell you what it is – for both of these cases. And one goes in one way, one way, the other,” she said.
