Ethanol Groups Challenge California Fuel Standard
The nation’s ethanol industry is challenging the constitutionality of the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS).
The Renewable Fuels Association and Growth Energy filed a complaint on Christmas Eve in the Federal District Court of Fresno charging that the measure violates both the Supremacy Clause and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
“The LCFS erects new regulatory obstacles to ethanol, frustrates the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, and threatens the nationwide market for domestic ethanol,” says a joint statement issued by the two organizations. “Additionally, by closing California’s borders to corn ethanol from other states, the LCFS will change how corn is farmed and ethanol is produced all over the country. The Commerce Clause specifically forbids state laws that discriminate against out-of-state goods and that regulate out-of-state conduct. The LCFS imposes excessive burdens on the entire domestic ethanol industry while providing no benefit to Californians. In fact, in disadvantaging low-carbon, domestic ethanol, the LCFS denies the people of California a genuine opportunity to clean their air, create jobs, and strengthen their economic and national security.”
The LCFS was adopted by the California Air Resources Board last spring and is due to take effect early next year.
4 Comments »
SacramentoE85
Exactly. Glad to see this case has been filed–it is clear that the Constitution would be violated with CARB’s definition of LCFS, especially with the obvious non-scientific biases and blockading of U.S. ethanol to the benefit of imported petroleum. I hope that this whole soap opera brings to the forefront the conflicts of interest in CARB that tie them to oil companies, their lobby, university researchers, etc. It would serve them right. I don’t know how CARB thought that this could ever be acceptable. Good to see both RFA and Growth Energy teaming up on this–go at it with double barrels locked and loaded.
If CARB goes through with this, there are several important California-specific products that the ethanol-producing states could voluntarilly boycott. Seriously. The Farm Bureau’s and small-town newspapers should push this threat into reality should CARB bully its way forward. When private citizens change their buying habits, it is not unconsitutional. California can’t afford to have its economy further afflicted–the Governator and others will lop heads at CARB if they see a real threat.
I am a private resident here in California. LCFS is providing no benefit to me–in fact it may drive up fuel prices and I am quite offended by CARB doing this. If I could actually vote on these government employees (supposed to be public “servants”), I would vote them out. Unfortunately they are just another example of an agency that has spun out of control, driven by industry, politics, and green (not environment…CASH!!).
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