Truckers sue over low-carbon fuel

Truckers sue over low-carbon fuel    The American Trucking Associations has joined petroleum refiners and other end-users in a legal challenge to California’s recently enacted low-carbon fuel standard.
   The California Air Resources Board regulation requires annual reductions in the carbon intensity of gasoline and diesel over the next 10 years. The regulation falls directly upon fuel providers (refiners, importers and blenders of fuel), but will impact end-users because of associated fuel price increases ATA said.
   The suit asserts “shuffling” of low-carbon fuel to California and away from other states will significantly burden fuel providers and consumers without any net change in fuel’s carbon-intensity on a global scale, resulting in no reduction — and a likely increase — in greenhouse gas emissions, the association said.
   The new standard “would essentially ban imports to California of fuels derived from unconventional sources such as oil sands from Canada, oil shale from the Western U.S., or domestic coal supplies that can be converted into transportation fuels,” said ATA Vice President Rich Moskowitz. “Discouraging these fuels will simply increase costs while failing to prevent their export to and consumption by other nations.”
   The complaint was filed in U.S. District Court in California. Others joining the suit include the Center for North American Energy Security, Consumer Energy Alliance and National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.