The US ethanol industry will ask the Supreme Court to hear its challenge to California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard, two trade groups said Thursday.
The Renewable Fuel Association and Growth Energy petitioned the high court to overturn the law, which they said illegally regulates interstate commerce, in violation of the Constitution, by discriminating against ethanol produced in the Midwest.
California, through its adoption of the LCFS, has "violated the most basic, structural features of interstate federalism," the groups said in a joint statement.
"LCFS not only discriminates against out-of-state commerce, but it seeks to regulate conduct in other states in direct contravention of our constitutional structure and at the direct expense of Midwestern farmers and ethanol producers," they added.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in January upheld the LCFS, saying California is within its rights to regulate fuels used in the state and has not violated the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution, even though it assigns higher "carbon intensity scores" to fuels made in other states.
"California is free to regulate commerce within its borders even if it has an ancillary goal of influencing the choices of actors in other states," Judge Ronald Gould wrote for the majority.
The oil industry has also protested the LCFS for its compliance costs.
The LCFS, the first of its kind in the nation, requires companies selling transportation fuel in California to reduce the fuel's "carbon intensity" by 10% by 2020. Under the law, each type of fuel is given a carbon intensity score, as measured by the lifecycle emissions of the fuel.
California's Air Resources Board, which administers the LCFS, determined that ethanol produced out-of-state, when the impacts of land use and transporting the fuel to market are considered, is more carbon intensive, and thus more environmentally harmful, than ethanol produced in-state.
This is primarily due to California's more efficient ethanol plants and greater access to electricity generated from renewable sources and natural gas. Most of the Midwest's electricity, used to make steam in ethanol production, comes from coal.
