Two major ethanol groups - the Renewable Fuels Association and Growth Energy - are challenging the constitutionality of California’s low carbon fuel standard, which allows the state to regulate greenhouse gas emissions by automobiles, according to a news release.

The groups said they filed a lawsuit in the federal District Court in Fresno, Calif., on Dec. 24 to stop the state from moving ahead with its LCFS, which they argued was not based on science and was inconsistent with the U.S. constitution.

The California Air Resources Board voted in April 2009 to adopt the LCFS against opposition from many pro-ethanol groups who argued at the time that it unfairly penalized ethanol producers.

The LCFS, which is supposed to take effect in 2011, ushered in a new era of state regulations and emission control that industry experts feared could spread nationwide.

In their legal complaint filed on Christmas Eve, RFA and Growth Energy argued that, “If the United States is going to have a low carbon fuel standard, it must be based on sound science and it must be consistent with the U.S. Constitution.”

They added, “California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) is fundamentally flawed in both respects. As structured, it violates both the Supremacy Clause and the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”

The groups argued that California’s LCFS contradicts the sound judgment of Congress which passed the 2007 Energy Independence Security Act and singled out the importance of domestic ethanol for the nation’s environment, energy security, and economy. The LCFS erects new regulatory obstacles to ethanol, frustrates the federal Renewable Fuel Standard, and threatens the nationwide market for domestic ethanol.

Because congressional policy cannot coexist with California’s regulation, the latter must give way to the former, the supreme law of the land, the groups argued.

Moreover, by closing California’s borders to corn ethanol from other states, the LCFS will change how corn is farmed and ethanol is produced all over the country. The Commerce Clause specifically forbids state laws that discriminate against out-of-state goods and that regulate out-of-state conduct. The LCFS further imposes excessive burdens on the entire domestic ethanol industry while providing no benefit to Californians.

In fact, they added, in disadvantaging low-carbon, domestic ethanol, the LCFS denies the people of California a genuine opportunity to clean their air, create jobs, and strengthen their economic and national security.

“One state cannot dictate policy for all the others, yet that is precisely what California has aimed to do through a poorly conceived and, frankly, unconstitutional LCFS,” the groups said.