Western States Petroleum Association v. California Air Resources Board
(Cal. Ct. App., Feb. 13, 2025, No. B327663)
Introduction
The California Court of Appeal’s decision in Western States Petroleum Association v. California Air Resources Board upheld the California Air Resources Board’s (CARB) “Control Measure for Ocean-Going Vessels At Berth” regulation (the “at berth regulation”), which aims to reduce harmful emissions from vessels docked at California ports. The court found that CARB acted within its regulatory authority, complied with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and provided a sufficient environmental assessment under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The decision emphasizes judicial deference to CARB’s technology-forcing regulations, supporting California’s ambitious air quality and climate change initiatives.
Background
The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) filed a verified petition for writ of mandate, injunctive relief, and declaratory relief against the California Air Resources Board (CARB). The lawsuit sought to invalidate CARB’s at berth regulation adopted in August 2020, which targets emissions from vessels’ auxiliary engines & boilers and aims to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, diesel particulate matter, reactive organic gases & greenhouse gases. The regulation was designed to address public health risks and global warming, particularly benefiting disadvantaged communities near California ports. The regulation applies to container ships, refrigerated cargo vessels, passenger vessels, auto carriers, tankers, bulk carriers, and general cargo ships.
WSPA contended that CARB’s regulation was arbitrary and capricious because the technology required to meet the emissions standards was not feasible by the compliance deadlines of 2025 and 2027. They also argued that CARB violated the APA by failing to disclose an emissions report in a timely manner and that the environmental analysis under CEQA was inadequate.
Court’s Analysis and Holdings
Feasibility of Compliance With the Regulation
CARB’s quasi-legislative action of preparing and adopting the at berth regulation was considered an authentic form of lawmaking, thus judicial review was limited to ensuring the agency adequately considered all relevant factors and demonstrated a rational connection between those factors, the decision made, and the statutory purpose. The burden was on WSPA to demonstrate that CARB’s regulation lacked evidentiary support.
The court applied the “arbitrary and capricious” standard, emphasizing that agencies are allowed to make technology-forcing regulations as long as there is a reasonable basis for believing the technology can be developed by the compliance deadline.
The court noted that CARB conducted a feasibility analysis and consulted with technology manufacturers and marine emissions control experts, and that WSPA did not meet its burden to show that CARB’s determinations were arbitrary, capricious, or lacked evidentiary support. The court ultimately found CARB had sufficient evidence to support its determination that the necessary emissions control technology could be developed in time.
Compliance With APA
In considering CARB’s compliance with the APA, the court held that CARB substantially complied with the APA’s requirements to make relevant reports publicly available. CARB published the Notice of Proposed Action for the regulation in August 2018 and commissioned engineers at the University of California, Riverside, Bourns College of Engineering Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) in 2019 to conduct an emissions study. The CE-CERT report, dated March 2020, was made available to WSPA in early July 2020, before the end of the second public comment period, which ran from July 10 to July 27, 2020. WSPA participated in the comment period and raised concerns about the report’s findings.
The court found that while CARB may have violated Government Code section 11347.3 if the report was indeed delayed from March to July 2020, the at berth regulation was not automatically invalidated. CARB substantially complied with its APA obligations by making the report available before the comment period ended, allowing WSPA to fully participate in the process. The court noted that despite the rulemaking file exceeding 60,000 pages and the process spanning several years, the delay regarding the CE-CERT Report was the only alleged APA violation. The court concluded that any delay did not prevent WSPA from voicing its concerns, and CARB adequately considered and addressed those concerns in the final regulatory process.
Sufficiency of CARB’s Environmental Assessment
CARB’s Environmental Assessment (EA) sufficiently analyzed environmental impacts, safety hazards, and mitigation measures. The tiered approach utilized by CARB allowed them to conduct a broad analysis at the regulatory level while deferring detailed, site-specific assessments to the appropriate agencies once specific compliance projects were proposed. The court held that this method complied with the CEQA requirements, which allow tiering in large-scale planning approvals. The court emphasized that the program-level EA only needed to analyze environmental impacts and mitigation measures to the extent reasonably foreseeable, acknowledging that precise impacts could not be determined until individual projects were defined. The court agreed with CARB that no project-level analysis was required under CEQA and that CARB was not obligated to conduct safety studies for tanker terminals prior to implementing specific compliance responses.
Sufficiency of CARB’s Cumulative Impact Analysis
Finally, WSPA argued CARB failed to properly analyze the cumulative impacts of the regulation, particularly regarding the accelerated compliance timelines. The court found CARB’s use of the State Implementation Plan (SIP) EA’s projections met CEQA’s requirements, and that substantial evidence supported CARB’s methodology, which focused on a statewide perspective rather than individual industrial projects. Additionally, WSPA did not provide evidence that the SIP EA’s data was outdated or that circumstances had changed to undermine the analysis. The court upheld CARB’s cumulative impacts analysis, finding that it provided a “good faith and reasonable disclosure” of foreseeable cumulative impacts at a program-wide level.
Conclusion
The court affirmed the lower court’s ruling, demonstrating judicial deference to CARB’s regulatory authority. The decision reinforces CARB’s ability to implement ambitious emissions reduction measures under the California Clean Air Act and CEQA, even when such measures are forward-looking and dependent on emerging technologies.
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