Margot Cleveland writes for the Federalist about a signification opportunity for the nation’s highest court.
The EPA under the Biden Administration crafted a cap-and-trade scheme to allocate market share in the multibillion-dollar hydrofluorocarbons industry — including to “new market participants” based on the promotion of “equity.” Now, one of the businesses the EPA rendered a market-share loser under the federal agency’s unconstitutional take-over of the hydrofluorocarbon industry seeks review by the Supreme Court. And that pending petition represents a sleeper case that could implode much of the administrative state if it makes it onto the high court’s docket next term.
Next Thursday, the Supreme Court will conference over the pending petition for review, called a petition for certiorari, in the case of RMS of Georgia, LLC, dba Choice Refrigerants v. EPA. The petitioner, known more widely as Choice Refrigerants, is a small business operating out of Georgia which invested in patented blends of refrigerants for air conditioning and other products in the early 2000s. …
… When Choice Refrigerants challenged the EPA’s scheme, the EPA initially defended its allocation of market-share by claiming it “was free to issue the allowances in a reasonable manner, reasonably explained,” based on Chevron deference. However, the Supreme Court would later overrule the Chevron doctrine — a doctrine which required courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute so long as it was reasonable.
Nonetheless, the lower court rubberstamped the EPA’s cap-and-trade program, holding Congress could leave it up to the EPA to decide how to allocate market share. The ramification of this reasoning is truly boundless, as Choice Refrigerants explained in its petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court: The lower court’s decision “leaves EPA free to choose which companies may participate in a multibillion-dollar industry, and which may not, based entirely on the agency’s policy preferences, whether grounded in preserving orderly markets, advancing social justice, achieving environmental ends, or bare revenue raising.”
