A federal district court in Texas has concluded that the Department of Transportation (DOT) exceeded its statutory authority when it adopted a rule establishing a greenhouse gas (GHG) performance measure for federally funded highways. Under the rule, states were required to measure highway-related greenhouse gas emissions, set goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and monitor progress toward those goals. The state of Texas objected to the rule and filed a lawsuit.
This rule has a long history. The DOT first adopted a greenhouse gas performance measure for highways in 2016, at the end of the Obama administration. The Trump administration revoked this rule in 2018, concluding that the DOT did not have the authority to adopt a greenhouse gas-based performance measure under the relevant statute and it was bad policy. After President Biden took office, the DOT reversed course again, proposing a revised measure of highway greenhouse gas performance in 2022 and finalizing the rule in 2023.
Once the rule was promulgated, Texas promptly filed a lawsuit, arguing that the rule exceeded the scope of the DOT’s statutory authority, is arbitrary and capricious, and violates the spending power of the federal government. Last month, Judge Wesley Hendrix sided with Texas, solely on grounds of statutory interpretation.
Judge Hendrix summarizes his opinion in Texas v. USDOT as follows:
A federal administrative agency cannot act without authorization from Congress. In this case, the Federal Highway Administration created a rule requiring states to measure, report, and set sliding scale targets for the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles using interstate and national highway systems. For authority, the agency relied on 23 USC § 150(c)(3), which allows it to create measures to evaluate pavement conditions, bridge conditions, and “interstate system performance. .. [and] Texas sued, arguing that the agency lacked the authority to issue the rule. Given the plain language and context of the statutory text, the Court agrees. The relevant definitions and related performance measures make it clear that “National Highway/Interstate Highway System performance” focuses on the effectiveness of the infrastructure in facilitating travel, commerce, and national defense, not on the environmental outcomes of the vehicles they drive. they use the systems. Furthermore, the expansive interpretation of the DOT is compromised by the fact that its adoption would make other legal provisions superfluous. Additionally, Section 150(c)(3) performance measures exist only to implement the Section 119 National Highway Performance Program, which also distinguishes between highway system performance and environmental impact. Therefore, the Court concludes that the rule was unauthorized.
As Texas sought to buttress its arguments with the Major Questions Doctrine, the court saw no need to do anything other than conduct a traditional statutory analysis, albeit one based on the fundamental premise that agencies have only that authority delegated to them in the affirmative (a premise I encouraged; for example here and here). As Judge Hendrix explained in a footnote: “Because the statutory language itself makes clear that the DOT did not have authority to promulgate the 2023 Rule, the Court need not decide whether the question presented constitutes a ‘ important question'”.
Texas also argued that to the extent the Department of Transportation sought to impose unrelated conditions on the receipt of highway money, this could raise constitutional concerns (an issue I discussed in this article with Nathaniel Stewart), but again Judge Hendrix found it necessary to address that question. .
Judge Hendrix also ordered the nationwide vacatur of the Department of Transportation government, as he was required to do under Fifth Circuit precedent. As I noted before, I think this is a misreading of the Administrative Procedure Act, but the Fifth Circuit’s precedent is more binding on a federal district court in Texas than is my opinion. Rather than say something about how the Department of Transportation should act elsewhere, Judge Hendrix should have simply found that the DOT’s regulation is unenforceable against Texas and allowed the DOT to determine whether it wants to acquiesce elsewhere.
I assume the DOT will appeal.