Companies challenging the EPA’s rules for phasing out powerful heat-trapping chemicals are asking the Supreme Court to reinstate a doctrine that limits the power Congress can delegate to federal regulators.
The New Civil Liberties Union, which represents companies involved in the refrigerant aftermarket, asked the high court to overturn a 2025 District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld the EPA’s method of allocating hydrofluorocarbon production and consumption.
The EPA’s HFC phaseout is mandated by the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act, a 2020 law signed by President Donald Trump during his first term. This law gave the EPA authority to curtail the production and industrial use of compounds used in cooling and freezing, and in firefighting.
But the New Civil Liberties Union argues that the 2020 law failed to give the EPA clear direction on how to allocate 98% of the allowance in the multibillion-dollar HFC market. In its petition, the group invoked the long-dormant doctrine of nondelegation, which states that Congress cannot transfer its legislative authority to executive agencies such as the EPA.
The petition marks the latest effort by conservative groups to revive a doctrine that has not been used since 1935. The Supreme Court had a chance to revive the legal theory last year, but declined.
“Congress’s abject failure to provide meaningful guardrails is intolerable, and neither are the D.C. Circuit’s efforts to provide guardrails that Congress did not provide,” the group said in its petition to the Supreme Court. Judges take on about 1 percent of the petitions they receive.
Although the D.C. Circuit did not deny that failing to rein in the EPA constitutes an “impermissible delegation” of legislative authority, the court drew on “fragments of legislative history” to place limits on the EPA, according to the New Civil Liberties Union.
“If anything, the D.C. Circuit’s decision only makes the current situation worse, as it strongly suggests that unrepresentative challenges are more likely to encourage the courts to make policy decisions by an even less accountable judicial branch than to force Congress to actually do its job,” the petition states.
The group asked the Supreme Court to take up the case and “make clear once and for all that if Congress wants to restructure critical parts of our economy, it must make difficult choices of its own.”
The group wrote that the case is an “excellent vehicle for exploring and/or reconsidering the contours” of the nondelegation doctrine.
A reinstatement of this principle could constrain Congress from giving the EPA and other agencies the power to tackle climate change, making it a powerful tool for conservative groups seeking to roll back environmental regulations.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance argued in its petition that the EPA’s decision on HFCs “reduced” Georgia-based Choice Refrigerants’ market share.
“Due to Congressional inaction, EPA has taken away about one-third of Choice Refrigerants’ market share,” said Zonet Brown, general counsel and senior litigation attorney for the alliance. “Congress ordered EPA to reduce the market but let EPA choose the reasons for acquiring (or transferring) rights to any company.”
Brown asked the Supreme Court to “require Congress to do its duty, rather than leaving difficult choices to an unaccountable executive branch.”
EPA typically does not comment on pending litigation.
The Air Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigerating Association, an industry federation, defended the EPA before the D.C. Circuit, arguing that Congress “lawfully delegated” the authority to set up the HFC program to the agency.
