A Supreme Court challenge to California’s ability to set the nation’s toughest auto emissions standards could be a warm-up for future legal battles over standing — the ability of Trump administration opponents to fight the president in court.
The justices last week heard oral arguments in Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, delving into a narrow question of whether fuel producers could challenge California’s waiver authority from EPA since they weren’t directly affected by federal policy allowing the state to surpass national pollution standards.
Court watchers said the justices did not appear ready in this case to set a broad new rule for how courts can establish who can take their case to court. But the issue of standing is likely to be resurrected in the flood of litigation aimed at Trump administration policies.
The justices seemed ready to rule, perhaps unanimously, that the fuel producers did have standing, said Thomas Berry, director of constitutional studies at the Cato Institute, one of a number of organizations that submitted draft “friend of the court” briefs backing the fuel producers.
