Description: Lawsuit alleging that Washington State failed to implement provisions of the state’s state implementation plan relating to greenhouse gas emissions from oil refineries.
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Washington Environmental Council v. Bellon
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 02/03/2014 Order Download Rehearing en banc denied. The Ninth Circuit denied rehearing en banc. Judge Ronald M. Gould, joined by two other judges, wrote a dissent from the denial calling the October ruling “overbroad” and warning that it would foreclose climate change-related citizen suits under the Clean Air Act and harm the public. Judge Gould wrote that the Supreme Court’s 2007 opinion in Massachusetts v. EPA, in his view, did not limit standing in environmental lawsuits related to climate change to states. Instead, he wrote: “The Supreme Court’s reasoning endorsed the principle that causation and redressability exist, independent of sovereign status, when some incremental damage is sought to be avoided. Accordingly, Massachusetts v. EPA also confers standing upon individuals seeking to induce state action to protect the environment.” In a concurring opinion, Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr. (author of the October opinion) wrote that the conclusion that plaintiffs lacked standing was compelled by the Supreme Court’s stringent requirements for standing in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, as well as by Massachusetts v. EPA. Judge Smith reiterated the distinction between the instant case, in which private plaintiffs sought to compel promulgation of specific regulations, from Massachusetts v. EPA, in which sovereign states asserted a procedural right. Judge Smith rejected the dissent’s suggestion that the court had erected “new and inappropriate barriers to environmental litigation.” “Not so,” wrote Judge Smith. Rather, “[o]ur decision rests on a straightforward application of Lujan and Mass. v. EPA.” 10/31/2013 Order Download Order vacated and briefing ordered on whether case should be reheard en banc. After a judge of the Ninth Circuit called for a vote to determine whether the case would be reheard en banc, the court issued an order on October 31, 2013 requiring the parties to submit briefs on whether the case should be reheard. Briefs were filed by the environmental groups, WDOE, and the Western States Petroleum Association on November 21. 10/17/2013 Opinion Download Opinion issued reversing district court. On appeal, defendant-intervenor Western States Petroleum Association argued for the first time that plaintiffs lacked Article III standing, and in a decision issued on October 17, 2013, the Ninth Circuit agreed. The Ninth Circuit held that even assuming that plaintiffs established injury in fact resulting from climate changes, they had not provided evidence sufficient to establish the causality or redressability elements of standing at the summary judgment stage. The court assumed without deciding that “that man-made sources of [greenhouse gasa] emissions are causally linked to global warming and detrimental climate change” but held that plaintiffs’ “vague, conclusory statements” connecting the failure to set RACT standards to their injuries failed to satisfy their evidentiary burden. The Ninth Circuit further noted that establishing “a causal nexus” might be “a particularly challenging task” because “there is limited scientific capability in assessing, detecting, or measuring the relationship between a certain [greenhouse gas] emission source and localized climate impacts in a given region.” The court rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the causal link should be inferred because they were seeking to enforce a regulatory obligation; the court noted that plaintiffs could not benefit from the relaxed standing rule for sovereign states carved out by the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA. In concluding that plaintiffs had also failed to establishing the redressability element of standing, the Ninth Circuit pointed to the absence of evidence in the record that RACT standards would reduce the pollution causing plaintiffs’ injuries. -
Washington Environmental Council v. Bellon
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 03/27/2012 Order Download Court ordered the defendants to complete the RACT process within 26 months. 12/22/2011 Order Download Intervenor-defendant's motion for reconsideration denied. 12/01/2011 Order Download Order issued granting plaintiff's motion for summary judgment. Both sides moved for summary judgment. The district court granted the plaintiffs’ motion, holding that the law was clear that the state agencies were required to establish reasonably available control technologies (RACT) for GHGs and to apply the RACT standards to oil refineries. 03/10/2011 Complaint Complaint filed. Two environmental nonprofit groups filed a lawsuit alleging that the Washington State Department of Ecology, Northwest Clean Air Agency, and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency were in violation of the Clean Air Act because they failed to implement mandatory provisions of Washington’s State Implementation Plan relating to the control of GHGs from oil refineries. The complaint alleged that four of the five companies that operate oil refineries in the state were operating under expired Title V permits, and that none of the permits contained requirements for controlling GHG emissions.