While the ruling itself is confusing, try the actual language the Times uses to try and explain it in normal terms:

The California rule is one of the first in the country to use a “life cycle” analysis to determine the total amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the course of producing and transporting a fuel, or its “carbon intensity.” By setting a carbon intensity standard, producers and distributors who emit less are rewarded with marketable credits; those who exceed the standard must buy credits, driving up the costs of their fuel.

Let me translate:

California is the first state to invent a craptastic term like “life cycle analysis” in order to create a prohibitively expensive regulation that only the artificially inflated energy prices of the Obama administration could make viable. By setting a made up “carbon intensity” measure, California hopes to break the back of every energy producing company in the nation, except Solyndra – and whatever else Obama likes.

California has gone off the deep end and is now trying to drag the rest of the country down with it. One Federal judge has decided to intercede.

While that judge may not save California from itself, he may well be saving the rest of us (except New York and select few other blue states) from California’s demise.