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The Supreme Court blocked the oil and gas industry's challenge to a high-ethanol blend of gasoline Monday, scoring a point for a renewable fuel industry aiming to mix more plant-based materials into the nation's gasoline. 

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Energy: Corn-based fuels offer a renewable alternative to petroleum but are less energy-dense.

Environment: Mixing plant-based material into gasoline can lower greenhouse gas emissions.

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The Supreme Court decision comes as fuelmakers find themselves up against a so-called ethanol "blend wall." Companies struggle to meet federal renewable fuel requirements as a slow economy and more efficient cars push gasoline demand down.

Renewable fuel advocates say the solution is to allow blenders to mix a greater amount of corn-based ethanol into gasoline in order to satisfy the federal standard, reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil, and help curb greenhouse gas emissions. Opponents say the higher blend gasoline can damage today's engines and require large-scale infrastructure updates that would push up prices at the pump. 

In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency, which oversees the government's renewable fuel standard, raised the legal volume of ethanol in commercial gasoline from 10 percent (E10) to 15 percent (E15) for use in cars and light trucks from model year 2001 and newer.  

Oil industry groups challenged the legality of the EPA's increase but the circuit court in Washington, D.C., rejected the challenge last summer. Those groups then petitioned the Supreme Court, which decided Monday not to consider the case. 

"EPA approved E15 before vehicle testing was complete, and we now know the fuel may cause significant mechanical problems in millions of cars on the road today," Harry Ng, vice president and general counsel with the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based trade organization, said in a statement. Mr. Ng called the decision a "big loss for consumers, for safety and for our environment."

The industry group hopes to repeal the EPA's renewable fuel standard, saying it will increase gas prices by 30 percent and decrease gross domestic product by $770 billion by 2015.

Renewable fuel advocates contest that viewpoint, saying biofuels offer the consumer more choices with fewer emissions and drive economic growth in rural parts of the country.

"This is not an industry you can transport," said Jeff Lautt, chief executive of Poet, a leading ethanol producer based in Sioux Falls, N.D. "From a jobs perspective, it's a win-win situation."

The debate over how much ethanol today's cars can handle is not unlike the hand-wringing over unleaded fuel in the 1970s, Mr. Lautt said in an interview. Concerns that removing lead from fuel would wreck engines turned out to be exaggerated, Lautt said, and that's echoed in mechanical worries surrounding E15.

The Supreme Court's decision Monday is a big boost for a industry that benefited from the implementation of the renewable fuel standard in 2005. The rule aims to blend 36 billion gallons of renewable sources into transportation fuels by 2022.

"The uncertainty created by this lawsuit has chilled commercial activity that would provide American consumers more affordable choices at the pump," Bob Dinneen, president and chief executive of the Renewable Fuels Association, said in a statement. "With this decision, E15 can finally become a meaningful option for more Americans.” 

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The US Supreme Court handed down two important decisions Monday that will make it harder for workers to mount and win discrimination lawsuits against their employers.

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In a pair of 5-to-4 decisions, the justices embraced a narrow definition of who qualifies as a supervisor for purposes of federal discrimination law, and the court endorsed a tough standard in cases where a worker claims to be the victim of retaliation after complaining of unlawful discrimination.

The majority justices said the narrow standards would be easier for courts to administer and that other safeguards were available to protect workers.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg filed a dissent in both cases calling for Congress to overturn the decisions by passing new legislation.

“Congress has, in the recent past, intervened to correct this Court’s wayward interpretations of Title VII,” she wrote, referring to the passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Act in 2009 overturning a 2007 high court decision.

“The ball is once again in Congress’ court to correct the error into which this Court has fallen and to restore the robust protections against workplace harassment the Court weakens today,” she said.

“The winner today, as in most days in the recent past, is business,” Mark Graber, a law professor at the University of Maryland, said in a statement.

He said the decisions will help insulate businesses from liability in workplace discrimination and retaliation lawsuits.

Both cases were decided by the same 5-to-4 conservative-liberal split among the justices.

The retaliation decision was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

It stems from the case of Naiel Nassar, a physician and faculty member at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Nassar is of Middle Eastern heritage and complained that one of his supervisors was biased against him because of his religion and ethnic heritage.

He eventually resigned from his teaching position but arranged to keep working at the Medical Center. After resigning, Nassar sent letters to his former supervisors and colleagues stating that he was leaving because of harassment.

Angry at the letter, one of the supervisors contacted the Medical Center, which then withdrew Nassar’s job offer.

Nassar sued, accusing the supervisor of engaging in illegal retaliation tied to his earlier complaints about bias by a different supervisor.

The question in the case was whether the lower courts applied the correct standard for proving a case of illegal retaliation.

The lower courts applied a broad standard that held that Nassar could win his case as long as he could prove that retaliation was a motivating factor [among other factors] for the adverse employment action.

The jury found for Nassar, awarding him $400,000 in back pay and more than $3 million in compensatory damages. The $3 million award was later reduced to $300,000.

An appeals court upheld the lower court’s use of the broader, motivating-factor standard.

In their appeal to the Supreme Court, lawyers for the Medical Center argued that the lower courts should have applied a tougher standard. They said Nassar should have been required to show that he lost his job at the Medical Center because of his supervisor’s illegal retaliation.

On Monday, the high court agreed with the Medical Center that the tougher standard is required.

“The text, structure, and history of Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964] demonstrates that a plaintiff making a retaliation claim under [federal civil rights law] must establish that his or her [allegation of discrimination was the cause] of the alleged adverse action by the employer,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

“The University claims that a fair application of this standard, which is more demanding than the motivating-factor standard adopted by the Court of Appeals, entitles it to judgment as a matter of law,” he said.

Kennedy said that question would be better resolved by the lower courts that handled the case.

The Supreme Court vacated the earlier appeals court decision that upheld the lower court, and remanded the case for further action under the clarified standard.

The case was University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Naiel Nassar (12-484).

The decision in the second case was written by Justice Samuel Alito. The issue in that case was how to determine who qualifies as a supervisor in the workplace for purposes of a federal discrimination lawsuit.

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In a ruling Monday, the US Supreme Court gave its sternest warning yet that the use of racial discrimination in admissions should be the last choice for public schools in achieving a racially diverse learning environment for students.

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In a rare 7-to-1 decision, the justices told a lower court to make sure the University of Texas proves that “no workable race-neutral alternatives would produce the educational benefits of diversity” that would justify race-based policies. The justices admonished a lower court for taking it merely on “good faith” that the university had tried hard enough to avoid discrimination.

So now many schools may need to rethink the ways they can achieve both the benefits of campus diversity and – without saying as much – a legal way to admit underqualified minorities. Many higher-ed institutions, for example, are working with high schools to better prepare minorities for college.

Texas had already gone far in developing a race-neutral method. It guarantees admission to students who graduate in the top 10 percent of each state high school – many of which are dominated by blacks or Hispanics. But that was not enough for the state. It also uses race as a factor in admitting minorities who don’t meet educational standards.

When a white student, Abigail Fisher, was denied admission to the University of Texas, she went to court. With this ruling, her case now goes back to an appeals court which, in the eyes of the justices, failed to apply “strict scrutiny” in evaluating the school’s affirmative-action plan compared with nonracial approaches.

“Strict scrutiny imposes on the university the ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to racial classifications, that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice,” the high court’s opinion stated. In other words, the Constitution’s provision against discrimination cannot be violated with ease. A compelling case must first be made.

The decision reflects not only a stiffening of the high court’s stance against the use of race in public decisionmaking but also in society as well. Public support for affirmative action has dropped from 61 percent in 1991 to 45 percent today, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. And in a speech last month to an all-black college, President Obama told graduates that they have “no time for excuses” in achieving success.

“In today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil – many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did – all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned,” Mr. Obama said at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

The message in the court’s ruling is that Americans need to move faster to find new or better ways to help the disadvantaged that don’t step on legal rights. In a 2003 ruling, the court said it “expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary....”

In that time frame, whites will be heading toward minority status in the United States. Among students entering college in 2001, nonwhites were 47 percent, up from one-third just 15 years earlier.

The struggle over affirmative action in colleges is only a minor part of a larger effort to reduce an inequality in opportunities for low-income Americans. The roots of poverty are deep and complex, with college admissions being a small contributor to closing the gap between races. Even on campuses with high diversity, self-segregation by students remains prevalent despite the obvious merits of diversity in exposing students to different perspectives.

The best leg-up for disadvantaged youth lies in early childhood education and in supporting parents in such activities as reading to their children. As courts turn down solutions that compromise basic rights, Americans must step up in support of solutions that are both effective and constitutional.

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