Bracewell’s Jeff Holmstead told Bloomberg Law that he was not surprised that the Supreme Court decided to hear the renewable fuel case because there are circuit splits on the issue, which is “one of the factors, and maybe the most important factor, that the Supreme Court considers.”
Holmstead said the language of the Clean Air Act does not support lumping all of the cases together in the DC Circuit, predicting that the high court is more likely to allow the cases to be heard in the regional circuits.
“It may be true that EPA is using the same standards for everybody, but applying those standards should lead to different results based on … an individual state implementation plan,” he said.
The cases are PacifiCorp v. EPA, Oklahoma v. EPA and EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC.
