Amicus Curiae Brief — Diamond Alternative Energy, LLC, et al., Petitioners v. Environmental Protection Agency, et al.
Supreme Court briefFeb 3, 2025
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No. 24-7
In the
Supreme Court of the United States
♦
DIAMOND ALTERNATIVE ENERGY, LLC, ET AL.,
Petitioners,
v.
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY, ET AL.,
Respondents
♦
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
♦
BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE TEXAS ROYALTY
COUNCIL, AMERICAN ROYALTY COUNCIL,
AND NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
WHOLESALER-DISTRIBUTORS IN SUPPORT
OF PETITIONERS
♦
February 3, 2025
Ivan L. London
Counsel of Record
MOUNTAIN STATES
LEGAL FOUNDATION
2596 South Lewis Way
Lakewood, Colorado 80227
(303) 292-2021
ilondon@mslegal.org
Attorney for Amici Curiae
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
TABLE OF CONTENTS .....................................
i
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES ...............................
iii
IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS OF
AMICI CURIAE ..................................................
1
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT....................
2
ARGUMENT .......................................................
4
THE LOWER COURT WENT
AGAINST THIS COURT’S
PRECEDENTS. ........................................
4
THE LOWER COURT’S
APPROACH TO ECONOMIC
HARM IGNORES REALITY. ..................
7
THE LOWER COURT’S
APPROACH REFLECTS A
PROCEDURAL DISCONNECT
THAT BLOCKS PARTIES
HARMED BY A REGULATION
FROM CHALLENGING IT. ....................
11
LOWER COURTS MUST
PROVIDE A CHECK ON
REGULATORY OVERREACH. ..............
14
I.
II.
III.
IV.
i
V.
COURTS SHOULD NOT LET
REGULATORS RUN
ROUGHSHOD OVER
AMERICAN MARKETS. .........................
15
CONCLUSION ....................................................
18
ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Cases
Page(s)
Amfac Resorts, L.L.C. v. U.S. Dep’t of the
Interior,
143 F. Supp. 2d 7 (D.D.C. 2001) ......................
12
Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, (2009) .........................................
11
Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v.
Cal. State Council of Carpenters,
459 U.S. 519 (1983) ..........................................
10
City of Arlington v. FCC,
569 U.S. 290 (2013) ..........................................
14
Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw
Environmental Services,
528 U.S. 167 (2000) ..........................................
5
Harrison v. PPG Indus., Inc.,
446 U.S. 578 (1980) ..........................................
12
Kelly Oil Co. v. Svetlik,
975 S.W.2d 762 (Tex. App. Corpus Christi
1998) .................................................................
1
Lujan v. Defs. of Wildlife,
504 U.S. 555 (1992) .................... 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 12, 14
iii
Massachusetts v. EPA,
549 U.S. 497 (2007) ..........................................
4
Sierra Club v. EPA,
292 F.3d 895 (D.C. Cir. 2002) .......................... 13, 14
Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org.,
426 U.S. 26 (1976) ............................................
4
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer,
343 U.S. 579 (1952) ..........................................
14
Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc.,
395 U.S. 100 (1969) ..........................................
7
Constitutional Provisions and Statutes
U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1 ...............................
42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1) ..................................
11
12, 14
Rules
Fed. R. App. P. 15................................................
11
Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a) ..............................................
11
iv
IDENTITIES AND INTERESTS OF
AMICI CURIAE 1
The Texas Royalty Council (TRC) and
American Royalty Council (ARC) are organizations
representing mineral interest owners across Texas
and the United States, respectively. TRC and ARC are
dedicated to advancing domestic oil and gas
production while protecting the property rights and
economic interests of royalty owners. In Texas, for
example, “a royalty interest in an oil and gas lease is
an interest in real property, held to have the same
attributes as real property.” Kelly Oil Co. v. Svetlik,
975 S.W.2d 762, 764 (Tex. App. Corpus Christi 1998).
Thus, an injury to a person’s royalty is an injury to
both that person’s pocketbook and property.
The National Association of WholesalerDistributors (NAW) is the national voice of the
wholesale distribution industry, representing a
crucial link in the automotive and energy supply
chains. NAW’s members operate at the vital nexus
between manufacturers and retailers, facilitating the
efficient distribution of goods and playing an integral
role in the complex web of commercial relationships
that animate the modern economy.
1 Per Supreme Court Rule 37.6, amici confirm that no counsel for
a party authored this brief in whole or in part, and no such
counsel or party made a monetary contribution intended to fund
the preparation or submission of the brief.
1
While they represent different constituencies,
ARC/TRC and NAW together represent many, many
different types of entities harmed by the
Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) actions
underlying this case and the lower court’s erection of
a massive, unwarranted hurdle to judicial review of
the agency’s actions here and agency actions
generally.
The lower court’s elevated redressability
standard will bar amici’s members from pursuing
judicial review of regulatory actions that are clearly
designed to, and will inevitably, cause real harm to
their economic (and even property) interests. This
Court should not let the lower court erect such a
barrier to judicial review in this and future cases.
Accordingly, amici respectfully urge this Court to
reject the lower court’s “redressability” decision.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
The lower court knit from whole cloth a new
“redressability” standard that will prevent harmed
entities from challenging the regulatory actions that
harm them. The new standard is not consistent with
the Court’s precedents. This is not a case, for example,
where plaintiffs seek access to federal courts so that
they can potentially stop other governments a world
away from potentially undertaking projects that this
Nation would have no authority to prevent. See Lujan
v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 568–71 (1992);
contra Pet.App.22a, Pet.App.31a. No—in this case,
2
Fuel Petitioners look to challenge regulatory actions
specifically designed to put them out of business.
Pet’rs’ Br. 16. The actions are also intended to harm
amici and their members; that’s the whole point of an
EV Mandate. This Court has not shown an intent to
deny access to federal courts in such a situation.
The lower court’s decision should be seen for
what it is: an attempt (and not the first) to use civil
procedure in hopes of avoiding a clear-eyed look at
economic reality, legality, and the nationwide impacts
of upholding or striking down an EV Mandate and
similar attempts by federal regulators to manipulate
American markets. And in doing so, the lower court
has either created or worsened an unwarranted
procedural “disconnect” that supposedly separates
“civil procedure” from “administrative law as decided
through civil procedure.” In what other ilk of case
could a court slam its doors to a potential plaintiff
because that potential plaintiff had not somehow
coerced a third party to provide record testimony (in a
case that does not yet exist) about how that third
party might react to the harmful actions taken by the
putative defendant? Sure, regulatory actions like the
one at issue in this case bypass the federal district
courts, but there is simply no procedural basis for the
lower court’s imposition of such a hurdle to judicial
review.
The unfortunate result is that lower courts will
continue to, and increasingly will, find ways to let
regulators run roughshod over Americans by
3
inflicting unchecked harm on their economic (and, for
royalty owners, property) interests. Accordingly,
amici respectfully ask the Court to reverse the lower
court’s decision and keep the federal courts’ doors
open to those harmed by regulators.
ARGUMENT
I.
THE LOWER COURT WENT AGAINST
THIS COURT’S PRECEDENTS.
The lower court’s redressability standard is an
unwarranted departure from this Court’s precedent,
which has consistently held that plaintiffs need only
show a likelihood, not a certainty, of redress. See
Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561
(1992) (articulating the “likely to be redressed”
standard); Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426
U.S. 26, 38, 41–42 (1976). By demanding
incontrovertible proof in the form of sworn statements
from third-party automakers guaranteeing specific,
quantifiable reactions to a prospective waiver vacatur,
Pet.App.32a,
the
lower
court
unjustifiably
contravened the pragmatic, consequence-focused
approach this Court has long embraced.
Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497 (2007),
exemplifies the Court’s flexible, real-world-oriented
redressability analysis. There, the Court recognized
that requiring EPA to regulate vehicle emissions
likely would mitigate at least some of the alleged
harms, even if the precise extent of the reduction were
4
uncertain. The Court held that this was at least
sufficient to show redressability and allow the case to
go ahead. Id. at 525–26. The question was whether the
requested relief would yield some meaningful benefit
to the petitioner, however incremental or contingent
on third-party responses. Id. Conspicuously absent
was any suggestion that petitioners tender sworn
commitments detailing the minutely quantifiable
steps third-party entities might take in response to a
successful judicial decision. Id. Going further, the
Court found the alleged harm redressable even
though it was logically certain that a third party likely
would take steps that might worsen—rather than
mitigate—the harm. Id. (“Nor is it dispositive that
developing countries such as China and India are
poised to increase greenhouse gas emissions
substantially over the next century: A reduction in
domestic emissions would slow the pace of global
emissions increases, no matter what happens
elsewhere.”). There was self-evident logic in the
conclusion that a court decision benefitting the
petitioner would at least present the possibility of
some iota of harm reduction.
The practical stance is in line with Friends of
the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services’
contextual conception of causation. 528 U.S. 167, 185–
86 (2000). The Laidlaw Court considered civil
penalties “likely” to redress environmental injury by
potentially deterring violations and reducing the risk
of harm, even absent definite assurances of a
violator’s future conduct. Id. The Court pragmatically
5
recognized that penalized entities weigh myriad
factors in calibrating behavior to legal decrees, and at
no point did the Court suggest that a sworn,
unconditional pledge of forward-looking compliance—
from a putative third party, no less—was an Article
III sine qua non. Id.
Even Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, on which
the lower court relied, Pet.App.17a, Pet.App.22a,
Pet.App.31a, belies any categorical requirement of
definite third-party assurances. 504 U.S. at 562–67.
Lujan’s plaintiffs lacked standing for many reasons,
including because they did not allege cognizable
injury or non-speculative causation. Id. And with
respect to “redressability,” there was simply no reason
to think that a federal court in America could decide a
question of regulatory lawfulness in a way that would
enable the plaintiffs (or anyone else) to stop other
governments a world away from potentially
undertaking projects that this Nation would have no
authority to prevent. See id. at 568–71. Maybe if,
before filing suit, the Lujan plaintiffs had somehow
secured sworn assurances from Congress and the
President that the U.S. would declare war on any
nation not consulting with American regulators about
endangered species, then the outcome in that case
might have been different. See id. at 571 n.5 (“Seizing
on the fortuity that the case has made its way to this
Court, Justice STEVENS protests that no agency
would ignore an authoritative construction of the ESA
by this Court. In that he is probably correct; in
concluding from it that plaintiffs have demonstrated
6
redressability, he is not.”). But nothing in Lujan made
this or any other such outlandish pre-litigation-thirdparty-testimony scenario the requirement that the
lower court created in this case.
What’s more: here, Fuel Petitioners did
present empirical data, detailed econometric models,
and expert analysis showing how EPA’s actions and
an EV Mandate would harm them. Pet.App.19a–
Pet.App.20a. That is enough to get inside the
courthouse doors. See, e.g., Zenith Radio Corp. v.
Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U.S. 100, 123–24 (1969)
(market data and economic expertise can show
antitrust injury).
II.
THE LOWER COURT’S APPROACH
ECONOMIC HARM IGNORES REALITY.
TO
The lower court’s redressability analysis rests
on an oversimplified account of how regulatory acts
impact modern economic systems. As Fuel Petitioners
explain, energy markets are complicated and wideranging, Pet’rs’ Br. 21–22, and EPA’s desired
endgame here is to artificially kill a spectrum of the
energy markets by keeping oil in the ground, see
Pet’rs’ Br. 3. “The entire point [is] to decrease the
amount of liquid fuel burned by drivers.” Pet’rs’ Br. 3.
Accordingly, assuming that an EV Mandate
would only harm automakers defies common sense.
Contra Pet.App.22a. A federal regulatory action
intended to kill the market for liquid fuel will
7
obviously, self-evidently hurt fuel refiners and
providers. See Pet’rs’ Br. 21. And Fuel Petitioners
provided evidence of that at the lower court.
Pet.App.19a–Pet.App.20a.
Going further “downstream,” what about the
businesses that construct service stations and run
them to sell liquid fuel to automobile drivers? What if
an EV Mandate forces them either to close or to spend
money to re-construct so that they are only providing
non-liquid fuels?
What about supply-chain businesses that use
liquid-fuel based automobiles to provide wholesale
distribution of goods throughout the Nation, which is
true of many of NAW’s members? What if an EV
Mandate forces them either to close or to trash their
current fleet and buy non-liquid-fuel automobiles? See
supra, at 1.
Tracking back “upstream,” what about
businesses that make money by constructing and
running the pipelines that move liquid fuels (or their
oil feedstocks) around the Nation? What if an EV
Mandate makes their businesses a dead-letter
because no one will pay them to move oil and liquid
fuel?
What about the oil companies that explore for
oil reserves and make their money by finding,
producing, and selling oil? What if an EV Mandate, by
design, is intended to kill those businesses?
8
And not least, what about the families and
individuals, like ARC’s and TRC’s members, who own
land in this Nation, including land that has oil
reserves? When an oil company wants to produce oil
from their properties, the oil company must pay them
for the right do so. That payment can include a onetime “bonus,” and it can include a recurring royalty
payment that aggregates not just to generational
wealth, but also for many property owners a sole
means of retirement income, a way to pay for medical
expenses etc. What if a regulatory EV Mandate
negates any expectation of income in exchange for
letting an oil company produce oil from their
properties? Those royalty owners suffer too.
None of those many entities or the myriad other
entities harmed by an EV Mandate should have to
coerce an automaker to provide record testimony in a
case that does not yet exist about how that automaker
might react to a regulatory EV Mandate before they
could make it inside a federal courthouse. See Lujan,
504 U.S. at 560–61. In deciding otherwise, the lower
court simply got “redressability” wrong.
The court below did not grasp these market
mechanics, treating automakers collectively as the
sole fulcrum on which the entire outfall of EPA’s
actions would pivot. But no single actor, however
powerful, dictates the trajectory of a vast,
multifaceted sector like energy. The notion that one
private entity even could provide the definite,
9
conclusive assurances the lower court supposedly
needed ignores reality.
And the lower court gave no limiting principle:
is it enough to coerce one automaker to provide
testimony before filing a lawsuit? Would a litigant
need to coerce pre-filing testimony from all the
automakers? All of them selling cars in the United
States? Or selling cars around the world? And for
notice-and-comment rulemaking, how exactly would
the lower court propose that a liquid-fuel provider, or
a supply-chain company, or a royalty owner convince
an automaker (again, where there is no lawsuit yet) to
submit public comment on a proposed regulatory
action that might or might not come to fruition? And
according to the lower court, how should a royalty
owner coerce an automaker to make a public comment
sufficient to convince the lower court that the
automaker will take actions that will directly hurt the
royalty owner?
Here, Fuel Petitioners provided record evidence
showing that EPA’s actions would hurt them. E.g.,
Pet.App.19a–Pet.App.20a. Courts, for example,
regularly rely on analogous evidence to discern
causation in complex statutory settings. See, e.g.,
Associated Gen. Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Cal. State
Council of Carpenters, 459 U.S. 519, 542 (1983)
(market analysis can show antitrust injury). Article
III demands no more to get inside the courthouse
doors in the first place.
10
III.
THE
LOWER
COURT’S
APPROACH
REFLECTS A PROCEDURAL DISCONNECT
THAT BLOCKS PARTIES HARMED BY A
REGULATION FROM CHALLENGING IT.
At best, the lower court has exposed an
unwarranted procedural “disconnect”—whether one
the lower court created or merely worsened—that
supposedly separates “civil procedure” from
“administrative law as decided through civil
procedure.” Taking the mine-run of civil litigation in
federal courts started per Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 8, while the plaintiff’s allegations must be
“plausible,” the federal court must accept them as true
without recourse to other evidence (just “judicial
experience and common sense”). See Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, 678–79, (2009). Fed. R. Civ. P. 8 does
not require coerced, pre-litigation, third-party
testimony to get in the courthouse doors. Nothing in
the applicable federal appellate rules erects such a
barrier either. See Fed. R. App. P. 15.
Of course, following Rule 8 gets only one foot in
the courthouse door. The other foot comes from
standing. Our Constitution only lets federal courts
open their doors to actual “Cases” and
“Controversies.” U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. And
there cannot be a case or controversy unless the
plaintiff shows that it has “standing” to bring a case
in the first place. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560.
11
“Each element [of standing] must be supported
in the same way as any other matter on which the
plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the
manner and degree of evidence required at the
successive stages of the litigation.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at
561. So, “at the pleading stage, general factual
allegations of injury resulting from the defendant's
conduct may suffice, [but in] response to a summary
judgment motion . . . the plaintiff can no longer rest
on such ‘mere allegations,’ but must ‘set forth’ by
affidavit or other evidence ‘specific facts.’” Id. At first
then, the lower court’s decision makes some sense.
But wait—in Lujan, the Court did not specify
that the plaintiff had to produce third-party
testimony to meet its “standing” burden at summary
judgment. See id. Sure, that might be a possibility, but
it is not a requirement. Id. at 561–62. Certainly, one
other way is to show by sworn statement that the
plaintiff itself will suffer some actual or imminent
injury from the defendant’s action. Id. at 564.
Here is the disconnect: for cases brought in
federal courts, like the lower court here, under the
Administrative Procedure Act (generally) or the Clean
Air Act provision at issue here, 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1),
judicial review is ordinarily confined to the
administrative record and discovery is not allowed.
E.g., Amfac Resorts, L.L.C. v. U.S. Dep’t of the Interior,
143 F. Supp. 2d 7, 10 (D.D.C. 2001) (APA); Harrison
v. PPG Indus., Inc., 446 U.S. 578, 593 (1980) (CAA) (if
Congress had intended 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1) cases to
12
include “the tools of discovery,” then it would have
said so). Consequently, a putative litigant challenging
a regulatory action like the one at issue in this case
must obtain any evidence from a third-party nonlitigant before filing its lawsuit. But how?
Sure enough, in this case, Fuel Petitioners
brought evidence to the lower court. E.g.,
Pet.App.19a–Pet.App.20a. But how were they
supposed to coerce even a single automaker, much less
many of or all the automakers, to provide testimonial
evidence of what those automakers would or even
might do? Going further, how were Fuel Petitioners
supposed to adduce that sort of statement from the
automakers in a publicly filed rulemaking comment?
Fuel Petitioners would have no “tools of discovery”
there. The lower court has no answers.
And just as surely, the lower court refused to
allow application of any “tools of discovery” in this
case. Pet.App.30a. In the lower court’s words, “After
oral argument, Fuel Petitioners filed a motion to
supplement the record and to file a supplemental brief
regarding their standing.” Id. But the lower court
denied the request. Id. Read charitably, the lower
court left open a door for post-petition discovery by
citing its prior decision in Sierra Club v. EPA, 292
F.3d 895 (D.C. Cir. 2002). Id. at Pet.App.30a–
Pet.App.31a. But nothing about the lower court’s prior
decision suggests that it would ever allow thirdparty discovery to show standing after the
petitioner has begun its request for review. See Sierra
13
Club, 292 F.3d at 900–01. And nothing about Lujan
addresses whether lower courts in APA or 42 U.S.C.
§ 7607(b)(1) cases will, must, or could allow thirdparty discovery to show standing after a petitioner
starts its case. See Lujan, 504 U.S. at 561–62.
That brings us full-circle to the disconnect: a
court cannot require third-party testimony to show
standing in a record-review case. And the lower court
should not have demanded it here.
IV.
LOWER COURTS MUST PROVIDE A CHECK
ON REGULATORY OVERREACH.
The lower court’s mistaken new standard also
implicates
check-and-balance
problems.
Our
constitutional order rests on each branch of federal
government
policing
encroachments
on
its
prerogatives. See, e.g., Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.
v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579, 593–94 (1952) (Frankfurter,
J., concurring). A federal court’s unwillingness to
check administrative power threatens that equipoise.
See City of Arlington v. FCC, 569 U.S. 290, 315 (2013)
(Roberts, C.J., dissenting) (“It would be a bit much to
describe the result as ‘the very definition of tyranny,’
but the danger posed by the growing power of the
administrative state cannot be dismissed.”).
The federal courts’ Article III duty to hear cases
and
controversies
is
a
bulwark
against
“administrative state” “tyranny.” See id.; see also
Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 384
(2024). This is not a duty that the lower federal courts
14
can abdicate by erecting barriers to fair, neutral
judicial review in cases challenging federal regulatory
actions. Id. at 412. Yet as Fuel Petitioners describe,
this case is one in a series where the lower court has
manufactured procedural hurdles to avoid its
obligation to definitively decide the lawfulness of
various “California waiver” and other EV Mandate
actions. See Pet’rs’ Br. 8–9, 13–15, 35–45.
By
reversing
the
lower
court
on
“redressability,” this Court can force the lower court
to meaningfully address the regulatory overreach
complained of in this case.
V.
COURTS
SHOULD
NOT
LET
REGULATORS RUN ROUGHSHOD OVER
AMERICAN MARKETS.
The lower court’s decision defies common sense
and threatens “Main Street America” nationwide. On
common sense, the structural separation of powers
and need for basic regulatory accountability require a
redressability standard that acknowledges the
Executive Branch’s profound ability to influence
markets.
Amici’s interests in this case amplify Fuel
Petitioners’ primary point: federal regulatory actions
can cause harm far beyond the most directly regulated
“target.” See Pet’rs’ Br. 33–34. Here, the regulators’
policy that forces automakers to stop making fossilfuel-based automobiles obviously also hurts the
entities that make and sell those fuels, id., the entities
15
like NAW’s members who will have to replace vehicle
fleets with electric vehicles, see supra, at 1, 2 and the
entities like ARC’s and TRC’s members who rely on
fossil-fuel-production for income, see id.
As a practical matter, an unnecessarily
formalistic redressability standard premised on an
inert concept of markets will also harm the entities
whose welfares hinge on a stable regulatory process:
the businesses and entrepreneurs that drive growth
and innovation. See supra, at 1.
“Main Street” businesses, more than perhaps
any other segment of the Nation’s economy, stand the
most to lose if this Court adopts such a formalistic
approach to deciding who can challenge a regulation
in court. Amici represent a broad cross-section of the
American economy, including small businesses and
property owners nationwide. They suffer a shared
harm stemming from the lower court’s redressability
2 See also, e.g., PwC, Merge Ahead: Electric Vehicles and the
Impact
on
the
Automotive
Supply
Chain,
https://www.pwc.com/us/en/industrialproducts/publications/assets/pwc-merge-ahead-electric-vehiclessupply-chain.pdf (last visited Jan. 31, 2025) (describing the
challenges that transitioning to electric vehicles will impose on
wholesaler-distributors (among others) even just within the
auto-manufacturing industry). Aside from replacing fleets, there
are potential harms inherent merely in figuring out how to
supply the parts for electric vehicles. Id. at 8 (“Suppliers that
aren’t ready to meet the challenges that rising EV adoption will
bring could present a risk to automobile manufacturers at the
same time as their own business is evolving.”).
16
standard: a future inability to challenge further
market-distorting decisions—like an EV Mandate—
foist upon them by federal regulators. See supra, at 1.
Consider the plight of amici’s royalty-owning
members, many of whom are individuals and families
whose livelihoods depend on the income streams
generated by the network of exploration and
production, transportation, refining, and distribution
enterprises that are threatened—purposefully
targeted—by an EV Mandate. For the royalty owners,
the oil-and-gas concerns working on and in their
properties are not faceless corporate entities; they are
often independent businesses whose continued
operations and relationships with the royalty owners
underwrite the royalty owners’ economic security and
their communities’ fiscal health.
The lower court created a new “redressability”
hurdle that a litigant could never be expected to cross
in a case like this. What’s more, the lower court
refused to allow use of the “tools of discovery” to cross
that hurdle. But the creation of that hurdle was
premised on a myopic view of the impacts of EPA’s
actions throughout this Nation and on the disconnect
separating cases like this one from traditional civil
litigation. As a result, the lower court has wrongfully
abdicated its duty to meaningfully assess the
regulatory actions in this case and more generally the
devastation that a regulatorily imposed EV Mandate
will have nationwide.
17
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, amici respectfully
ask this Court to reverse the lower court.
Respectfully submitted,
Ivan L. London
Counsel of Record
MOUNTAIN STATES
LEGAL FOUNDATION
2596 South Lewis Way
Lakewood, Colorado 80227
(303) 292-2021
ilondon@mslegal.org
February 3, 2025
Attorney for Amici Curiae
18
This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.