Auto-Mark, Inc. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Jeffrey Bryan
- 0:24-cv-04442
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 23
In Auto-Mark, Inc. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan ruled that the Consumer Product Safety Commission exceeded its legal authority when it defined 'fuel' broadly enough to cover fuel-additive products like those made by Sea Foam, and granted summary judgment in Sea Foam's favor.
Manufacturers of fuel additives, engine cleaners, and similar non-fuel liquids who were potentially subject to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's flame-mitigation device rule for portable fuel containers. The ruling limits the Commission's authority to regulate containers of substances that do not qualify as 'fuels' under the ordinary meaning of that word. Companies in the fuel-additive industry that had been taking compliance steps in response to the Commission's expanded definition of 'fuel' may be affected by this decision.
What happened
In Auto-Mark, Inc. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission (File No. 24-CV-04442), Sea Foam Sales Company, a Minnesota manufacturer of fuel additives since 1942, challenged a federal safety rule requiring 'flame mitigation devices' on portable fuel containers — small spouts or screens that prevent flashback explosions. The Consumer Product Safety Commission had adopted that rule under the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act of 2020, a law aimed at stopping gas-can explosions that killed at least 11 people and sent over 1,200 to emergency rooms between 1998 and 2013. The Commission then defined 'fuel' to include any liquid with a flash point below 140 degrees Fahrenheit that is 'intended to be used as, or in, a fuel mixture to support combustion' — a definition broad enough to sweep in Sea Foam's engine-cleaning additives, which the company argued are not fuels at all.
Sea Foam sued under the Administrative Procedure Act (a federal law allowing courts to review and set aside unlawful agency actions), arguing the Commission stretched the meaning of 'fuel' far beyond what Congress authorized, acted arbitrarily, and skipped required public-comment procedures. The Commission countered that the lawsuit was filed in the wrong court (a district court rather than a federal appeals court) and too late (more than 60 days after the rule was published), and that key agency letters were not the kind of formal 'final agency action' that courts can review. The court rejected the timing and venue arguments, finding that the relevant statute gave companies a non-mandatory option to go to an appeals court directly — not an exclusive requirement — and also found that only the formal Determination (not the later staff letters) qualified as a reviewable final agency action.
On the core legal question, Judge Bryan granted Sea Foam's motion for summary judgment and denied the Commission's motion. The court found that the ordinary dictionary meaning of 'fuel' — a substance burned to produce heat or power — does not include Sea Foam's additives, which clean engine components and cannot substitute for gasoline or diesel. The court further found that by using the phrase 'fuel mixture,' the Commission extended its regulatory reach beyond what Congress authorized when it passed the 2020 Act, which referred only to 'flammable liquid fuels.' Because the Commission exceeded its statutory authority, the court did not need to rule on Sea Foam's other claims (arbitrary rulemaking and unconstitutional vagueness), and dismissed the case with prejudice — meaning the lawsuit is fully resolved in Sea Foam's favor.
The detailed version
- Auto-Mark, Inc. d/b/a Sea Foam Sales Company v. Consumer Product Safety Commission, No. 24-CV-04442 (JMB/EMB)
- Jeffrey M. Bryan
- September 18, 2025
Background and Parties Plaintiff Auto-Mark, Inc. d/b/a Sea Foam Sales Company (Sea Foam) is a Minnesota corporation that has manufactured fuel-additive and lubricant products since 1942. Its flagship product, Sea Foam Motor Treatment, is poured into fuel tanks or oil reservoirs to clean deposits and improve engine performance. Sea Foam does not market its products as fuels; the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) classifies them as compounds that 'enhance the quality and efficiency of fuels,' not as fuels themselves. Sea Foam's products have a flash point below 140 degrees Fahrenheit but, according to the record, cannot substitute for engine fuels like gasoline or diesel and do not by themselves produce heat or power.
Defendant Consumer Product Safety Commission (Commission) is a federal executive agency created in 1972 to protect the public against unreasonable risks of injury from consumer products. In 2020, Congress passed the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act of 2020 (Act), directing the Commission to require 'flame mitigation devices' — mechanisms that let fuel pour out but prevent flames from entering a container and causing flashback explosions — on portable fuel containers (defined in the Act as containers of five gallons or less holding 'flammable liquid fuels with a flash point less than 140 degrees Fahrenheit, including gasoline, kerosene, diesel, ethanol, methanol, denatured alcohol, or biofuels'). The Act responded to at least 11 deaths and 1,200 emergency room visits from gas-can explosions between 1998 and 2013.
The Challenged Rule Rather than conducting full notice-and-comment rulemaking (the standard public participation process required by the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA), the Commission determined it could adopt an existing voluntary industry standard, ASTM F3429, as the mandatory rule. On January 13, 2023, the Commission published its 'Determinations Regarding Portable Fuel Container Voluntary Standards Under the Portable Fuel Container Safety Act' (Determination) in the Federal Register (88 Fed. Reg. 2206). Section III of the Determination responded to public comments, including a comment from a diesel fuel-additive manufacturer asking whether additives counted as 'fuel.' The Commission responded that 'when a liquid with a flash point less than 140 degrees Fahrenheit is intended to be used as, or in, a fuel mixture to support combustion, it is a fuel' under the Act. Section IV formally adopted ASTM F3429 as the governing standard, effective July 12, 2023.
After Sea Foam sought clarification, the Commission's Compliance Office issued a May 2023 Letter stating that the rule applied to 'fuel additives and engine cleaners,' in addition to the fuels expressly listed in the statute, and threatening civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance. It extended enforcement discretion to July 12, 2024. After Sea Foam asked again for fuel additives to be removed from the rule's scope and raised compliance difficulties (one certified testing facility in the country, projected $25 million in costs over a decade, container closures increasing product costs by 300%), the Compliance Office issued a July 2024 Letter declining Sea Foam's request, extending enforcement discretion to July 12, 2025, and again warning of civil and criminal penalties.
The Lawsuit In December 2024, Sea Foam filed a four-count complaint seeking declaratory relief (a court declaration of its legal rights) and injunctive relief (a court order stopping the Commission's enforcement) under the APA (5 U.S.C. § 706). Counts alleged: (I) the Commission exceeded its statutory authority by regulating non-fuel liquids; (II) the Commission engaged in arbitrary and capricious rulemaking; (III) the Commission bypassed required notice-and-comment procedures; and (IV) the Commission's definition of 'fuel' was unconstitutionally vague. Both parties moved for summary judgment on the administrative record alone, before any discovery.
Threshold Issues: Jurisdiction
Timeliness and venue: The Commission argued that 15 U.S.C. § 2060(a) — which gives aggrieved parties the option to petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit or the relevant regional circuit within 60 days of a rule's promulgation — divested the district court of jurisdiction. The court rejected this argument. Section 2060(e) contains a savings clause stating that remedies under section 2060 are 'in addition to and not in lieu of any other remedies provided by law.' Additionally, section 2060(a) uses the permissive word 'may,' not mandatory terms like 'shall' or 'must,' indicating that direct appellate review is optional. The court cited two prior district court decisions (Dow Chemical, U.S.A. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 459 F. Supp. 378 (W.D. La. 1978); Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 414 F. Supp. 1047 (D. Del. 1976)) reaching the same conclusion. The court distinguished the EPA's direct-review statute at issue in Iowa League of Cities v. E.P.A., 711 F.3d 844 (8th Cir. 2013), which lacked such a savings clause.
Final agency action: The APA only allows judicial review of 'final agency action.' Under the two-part test from Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997), an action is final if (1) it marks the consummation of the agency's decisionmaking process (not merely tentative or interlocutory), and (2) it determines rights or obligations or has legal consequences.
The court held that the Determination — including the definition of 'fuel' in Section III — was a final agency action. Section IV expressly stated it was '[b]ased on staff's assessment and recommendations and consideration of the comments submitted,' confirming that Section III was part of the agency's actual decisionmaking, not merely a record of staff opinions. Legal consequences flowed from it because the Commission sought to enforce that definition against Sea Foam.
The court held that the May 2023 Letter and July 2024 Letter were not final agency actions, following the reasoning of Jake's Fireworks Inc. v. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, 105 F.4th 627 (4th Cir. 2024). The letters came from the Compliance Office, a subordinate body with no delegated rulemaking authority. Under the Commission's own structure, the Compliance Office cannot consummate the agency's decisionmaking. Accordingly, Count III (failure to observe notice-and-comment procedures, which was tied to the letters) was mooted by this holding.
Merits: Statutory Authority (Count I) The court applied standard tools of statutory interpretation, starting with the text. The Act authorizes rules for 'portable fuel containers,' defined as containers for 'flammable liquid fuels with a flash point less than 140 degrees Fahrenheit, including gasoline, kerosene, diesel, ethanol, methanol, denatured alcohol, or biofuels.' 15 U.S.C. § 2056d(b)(8)(A). The Commission defined 'fuel' in the Determination to cover any liquid with a flash point below 140 degrees 'intended to be used as, or in, a fuel mixture to support combustion.'
The court found this definition exceeded the Commission's statutory authority for two main reasons:
1. The phrase 'fuel mixture' — not used anywhere in the Act — expands the Commission's regulatory reach beyond 'fuels' to include non-fuel substances that might be mixed with a fuel. Because 'fuel mixture' is undefined and unlimited, it could cover any proportion of any liquid combined with fuel, including substances that are not themselves fuels.
2. The ordinary dictionary definition of 'fuel' — consistently defined across multiple dictionaries as 'a material used to produce heat or power by burning' — does not encompass Sea Foam's products. The record showed Sea Foam's additives clean engine components and stabilize fuel but do not themselves produce heat or power and cannot substitute for gasoline or diesel. Both parties agreed that dictionary definitions should guide interpretation of undefined terms. The EPA also maintains separate registries for fuels and fuel additives, and none of Sea Foam's products appear on the EPA's fuel registry.
The court specifically rejected the Commission's argument that Sea Foam's products are fuels because they combust inside an engine to which they are added. Even granting that characterization, the record showed the products are not used for the purpose of combustion and cannot function as a standalone fuel.
Rulings and Disposition - Sea Foam's motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 32): GRANTED on Count I (excess of statutory authority). - Commission's motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 38): DENIED in its entirety. - Counts II (arbitrary and capricious) and IV (unconstitutional vagueness): MOOTED by the Count I ruling. - Count III (notice-and-comment violation): MOOTED by the finding that the letters were not final agency actions. - Case DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE (meaning the matter is fully resolved and cannot be re-litigated), with judgment to be entered accordingly.
Note on Enforcement
The parties had stipulated that the Commission would extend enforcement discretion as to Sea Foam until January 12, 2026, or six months after the court's order, whichever came later.
Reviewer note from the AI+
Read the full 23-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.