Opinion ID: 806849
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Engine-Products Group

Text: The engine-products group advances a convoluted theory of standing. It begins with the assertion that its members 9 manufacture cars, boats, and power equipment with engines not made for, certified, or warranted to use ethanol blends greater than E10. As a result of EPA’s partial waivers, they assert, E15 will enter the fuel market and consumers will use it in their products. Such use, the engine manufacturers claim, “may” harm their engines and emission-control devices and systems. Pet’rs Br. at 17. This will supposedly subject the engine manufacturers to liability: consumers may bring warranty and safety-related claims against the manufacturers under state or federal law, and the government may impose a recall of some engines or vehicles. This hypothetical chain of events fails as a showing of Article III standing. An Article III injury in fact must be “(i) ‘concrete and particularized’ rather than abstract or generalized, and (ii) ‘actual or imminent’ rather than remote, speculative, conjectural or hypothetical.” In re Navy Chaplaincy, 534 F.3d 756, 759–60 (D.C. Cir. 2008). It must also be “substantially probable” that the challenged agency action caused that injury. See Fla. Audubon, 94 F.3d at 663 (citing Kurtz v. Baker, 829 F.2d 1133, 1144 (D.C. Cir. 1987)). The engine-products group’s theory of standing meets neither of these requirements. To begin with, the engine manufacturers provide almost no support for their assertion that E15 “may” damage the engines they have sold, subjecting them to liability. They suggest that damage may occur via two avenues. First, they contend that consumers will use E15 in the model-year 2001 and newer lightduty vehicles and engines for which it has been approved, and that E15 may harm those engines (contrary to EPA’s findings). They support this assertion, however, with a single reference to internal testing by Mercedes-Benz documenting a 2 percent hit to fuel economy and “potential vehicle damage” from the use of E15 in Mercedes vehicles. This is hardly evidence of a substantial probability that E15 will cause engine harm. 10 Second, the engine-products group maintains that consumers will “misfuel,” i.e., fuel non-approved vehicles and equipment with E15, and that E15 will cause damage to and emissions failures in such engines, including boat engines and power equipment motors, for which engine manufacturers may incur liability. This convoluted theory of causation will not meet Petitioners’ burden. It is well established that “[c]ausation, or ‘traceability,’ examines whether it is substantially probable that the challenged acts of the defendant, not of some absent third party, will cause the particularized injury of the plaintiff.” Fla. Audubon Soc’y v. Bentsen, 94 F.3d at 663 (citing Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 753 n.19 (1984)) (other citations omitted). As in Florida Audubon, Allen v. Wright, and numerous other cases cited in Florida Audubon, any injury to the engine-product petitioners—speculative at best—depends upon the acts of third parties not before the court. If the contemplated injury is to occur at all, it will require that consumers use the fuel in engines for which it is neither designed nor approved, suffer damages to those engines as a result, and bring successful warranty or other liability lawsuits against engine-products petitioners. These petitioners attempt to drag their claims across the causation threshold by simply listing federal laws that either impose liability for emission warranty claims, see 42 U.S.C. § 7541, or provide for recall of nonroad engines and vehicles that fail to meet emission standards, id. § 7547. This is not sufficient. That a theoretical possibility of lawsuits exists does not establish the required probability that the third parties will misfuel in the fashion posited by petitioners, then bring the lawsuits, then prevail. The last link is particularly problematic; the engineproducts petitioners have failed to point to any grounds for a meritorious suit against them. As they admit, Pet’rs’ Br. at 18, their engines are not warranted for E15, nor is it clear why manufacturers would be liable for damages from consumerinduced misfueling. As for their recall theory, they have failed to establish any probability that the government would recall 11 engines because third parties had misfueled. This leaves yet another weak link in their causative chain, especially given the limited circumstances in which manufacturers are generally subject to a recall, see Chrysler Corp. v. EPA, 631 F.2d 865, 896 (D.C. Cir. 1980). To reiterate what we noted earlier in this discussion, “[T]he ‘case or controversy’ limitation of Article III still requires that a federal court act only to redress injury that fairly can be traced to the challenged action of the defendant, and not injury that results from the independent action of some third party not before the court.” Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 41 (1976). The engine-products group has not established standing to bring these petitions.