Litigation

Antitrust experts say the Justice Department’s (DOJ) inquiry into whether four automakers illegally colluded to stifle competition by joining an agreement with California officials to cut their greenhouse gases appears to be a politically driven effort to intimidate industry and aid the Trump administration’s move to roll back federal rules.

A recent federal appellate ruling appears to have left the door open to the Trump administration’s planned prospective “reallocation” of waived biofuel production under the renewable fuel standard (RFS) to compensate for blending mandates waived for small refiners, though such a policy is universally opposed by the oil sector.

The Navy is urging a federal district court to dismiss claims from Pennsylvania residents seeking the military’s payment for medical monitoring to detect health issues that may develop after exposure to perfluorinated chemicals, after an appellate court, in a precedential decision, last year allowed the claims to proceed.

Multiple groups representing the coal, biomass and electric utility sectors are filing litigation over EPA’s Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule governing power plant greenhouse gases ahead of a Sept. 6 deadline to submit legal challenges, though the groups appear likely to target different aspects of the regulation.