Cheshire Cat Photo Blog(...said the Cat: 'we're all mad here....')

Industry trade associations for oil refiners, petrochemical companies, and trucking companies filed suit in U.S. District Court in Fresno today to void California’s low-carbon fuel initiative that is aimed at reducing, by 10%, greenhouse cas emissions from gasoline and diesel sold in California, the nation’s largest transportation market.

The standard, the world’s first to control the carbon intensity of vehicle fuels, was designed to control California’s impact on global warming and to spur development of alternative fuels and technology. The standard took effect last month.

The move follows the failed attempt by auto companies that took on California’s landmark 2002 law to cut greenhouse gases from vehicle tailpipes. Since their loss in court, California’s rules for making cars and trucks more fuel efficient are being incorporated into a national standard.

From the LA times:

“Auto companies spent five years on a lawsuit and in denial that they could meet California standards,” said Roland Hwang, a transportation specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “That was money, energy, and time that would have been much better spent figuring out how to make clean cars rather than fighting our laws. When price spikes and the Great Recession hit, Detroit especially was unprepared. If they had more fuel-efficient, clean cars in their lineup, they may have staved off bankruptcy.

“The oil industry needs to prepare for the day when they’ll have real competition,” he added. “California’s low carbon fuel standard gives them a clear road map to the future, but they apparently would rather be looking in their rear-view mirror.”

The lawsuit says that the rules discriminate “against transportation fuels and fuel feed stocks imported from outside of California with the intended effect of promoting in-state production of transportation fuels and keeping consumer dollars local…” Thus, the suit contends, the rules are an unconstitutional interference with interstate commerce.

This, from petrochemical company associations, and others…!

Under the current rules, the California Air Resources Board compares amounts of greenhouse gases from a variety of sources. The board assigns a high carbon content to Canadian fuel extracted from tar sands, since the extraction is an energy-intensive process. The board assigns a high content from Midwestern ethanol produced from corn, calculating that planting corn for energy would displace crops and result in emissions from land-use changes.

According to one of the plaintiffs:

“Charles T. Drevna, president of the National Petrochemical & Refiners Assn., another plaintiff, said that displacing those fuels, ‘would … increase our reliance on energy from less stable parts of the world, and weaken our national security.’”

In December, the ethanol industry filed suit against the regulations using similar arguments.

I blogged earlier about research at Stanford concerning high ozone production from burning fuels containing ethanol.

Over a dozen states and the federal government are ALSO considering low-carbon fuel initiatives.

“Mary D. Nichols, chairwoman of the state’s Air Resources Board called the lawsuit “shameful,” adding that the carbon standard will ‘help us break our dependence on fossil fuels. It will protect us from volatile oil prices…. Instead of fighting us in court, they should be working to provide consumers with the next generation of cleaner fuels.'”

Bonnie Holmes-Gen, policy director for the American Lung Assn. of California, said the low-carbon fuel standard “is good for public health” because high-polluting gasoline and diesel, which are linked to cancer, heart and lung diseases, would be replaced by cleaner fuels.

Air board officials do not expect the court to delay the implementation of the low-carbon rules while the lawsuit continues.

-Bill at

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