Engine Manufacturers Ass’n v. South Coast Air Quality Management District
Los Angeles auto purchase rules for vehicle fleets preempted by the Clean Air Act
The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) is responsible for lowering air pollution in the Los Angeles basin — the most intractable metropolitan air quality problem in the United States. As part of that effort, SCAQMD promulgated six Fleet Rules, requiring owners of different types of vehicle fleet, such as street sweepers, garbage collection trucks, buses and taxis, to purchase or lease only certain types of alternative-fuel vehicles that met stringent emissions specifications established by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), if such vehicles were commercially available.
The Engine Manufacturers Association and others challenged these Rules on the ground that they were pre empted by Section 209(a) of the Clean Air Act (CAA). That section provides:
“No state or political subdivision thereof shall adopt or attempt to enforce any standard relating to the control of emissions from new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines subject to this part. No state shall require certification, inspection, or any other approval relating to the control of emissions … as condition precedent to the initial retail sale, titling (if any), or registration of such motor vehicle, motor vehicle engine or equipment.”
SCAQMD defended the Fleet Rules by asserting that 209(a) preempted standards relating to the production of vehicles or engines, but not to the purchase of them. Its Fleet Rules did not seek to enforce any requirement that manufacturers produce vehicles or engines that conformed to Fleet Rules; they simply controlled what owners or operators of covered fleets could purchase, if compliant vehicles were commercially available at the time.
In an opinion for an 8-1 Court, Justice Scalia concluded that this distinction confused a standard with a means to enforce a standard. Standards relating to exhaust emissions limits are separate from an obligation by manufacturers to comply with those standards, and the statute covers all standards, not simply those implemented through obligations placed on manufacturers. The Court also concluded that “a command, accompanied by sanctions, that certain purchasers buy only vehicles with particular emissions characteristics is as much an ‘attempt to enforce’ a ‘standard’ as a command, accompanied by sanctions, that a certain percentage of a manufacturer’s sales volume must consist of such vehicles.”
Although the Court found that certain elements of SCAQMD’s were clearly preempted by its ruling, “it does not necessarily follow … that the Fleet Rules are preempted in toto.” The Court remanded for consideration of whether certain aspects of the Rules might be characterized as internal government purchasing requirements, as well as whether 209(a)’s preemptive reach applied to used as well as new vehicles.
The author, Christopher H. Schroeder, is the director of the Program in Public Law.
