WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday, California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal issued its decision in POET, LLC v. California Air Resources Board (ARB), which challenged the ARB’s adoption of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. The Court ruled for POET on every one of its substantive challenges, reversed the decision of the Superior Court affirming the LCFS, and ordered that ARB’s approval of the LCFS be set aside. The Court also ruled that ARB must, among other things, re-evaluate the LCFS’s overall environmental impacts, and allow public comment on several controversial issues including the carbon intensity values attributed to ethanol based on the theory of indirect land use change, which has been disputed and debunked by many in the scientific community.
The Court allowed ARB to continue to enforce the LCFS regulation for the time being, but also prohibited ARB from ramping up enforcement of the LCFS regulation beyond the current 2013 levels until it fully satisfies its legal obligations under CEQA and the APA.