On June 1, 2010, the NAM and other business organizations filed suit against EPA's latest interpretation of the so-called “Johnson Memo,” where the Agency stated for the first time that it will apply controls on greenhouse gas emissions on a wide range of manufacturing and other stationary sources beginning on January 2, 2011. This is the second piece of litigation against the EPA, which has issued 4 rules and interpretations that all combine to set limits on stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Manufacturing facilities are among many sources of such emissions, and legal challenges must be filed now even though enforcement against many of these sources will not occur immediately.
This case is related to our challenge to EPA's endangerment finding. See our summary in NAM v. EPA described as "Challenging EPA's endangerment finding".
On Sept. 15, the NAM coalition filed a motion for a partial stay of the regulation of greenhouse gases from stationary sources of emissions. The court denied this motion in December, 2010 and we spent 2011 filing briefs in all the greenhouse cases on the merits. Oral argument was held in the D.C. Circuit on February 29, 2012.
On June 26, 2012, the 3-judge panel upheld all of the primary greenhouse gas regulations. It upheld the EPA’s endangerment finding as within its discretionary power and procedurally sufficient, it upheld the tailpipe rule as being required by law once the endangerment finding is made, it found that the business community lacked standing to challenge the timing and tailoring rules because those rules helped rather than hurt, and, while it found our challenge to earlier rules in 1978, 1980 and 2002 to be timely, it rejected our legal arguments and found EPA’s interpretation compelled by the statute.