Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) filed an amicus brief supporting a Supreme Court petition challenging power grabs by the Environmental Protection Agency. The case, brought by National Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of RMS of Georgia (also called “Choice Refrigerants”), challenges the phase out of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a common refrigerant found in air conditioners and refrigerators. Congress directed the EPA to phase out HFCs, but it did not provide clear instructions on how to do so. This left the EPA in a position to essentially write its own laws, circumventing separation of powers and the Constitution.
The EPA abused its power, granting certain allowances in the cap-and-trade program to a foreign-owned intellectual property pirate who illegally imported a knock-off version of Choice’s proprietary HFC product, and to Choice’s former business partner, rather than to Choice Refrigerants itself—threatening its very existence without any constitutional basis for doing so.
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SLF explains in its amicus brief that the Supreme Court needs to intervene in this case because lower courts have allowed EPA to get away with this abuse and have failed to hold Congress accountable for creating open-ended laws.
Specifically, the D.C. Circuit Court relied on a different law—the Clean Air Act—to assume that Congress meant to include certain language in the AIM Act giving EPA broad authority to enact its overreaching program. But courts should never be in the business of presuming congressional intent and should instead look at the text of the law to determine its meaning. And when looking at the text, it is clear that EPA does not have as much power as it thinks it has.