Supreme Court 2020s: on Energy & Oil
Ketanji Brown Jackson:
Can't use EPA review to stop oil pipelines
Judge Jackson denied a motion for a preliminary injunction in a case challenging whether the government had adequately assessed the environmental impacts of a domestic oil pipeline on mostly privately owned land. Jackson concluded that the plaintiffs
failed to show that either NEPA or the Clean Water Act required further environmental review of the project. In a later decision in the same case, Judge Jackson ruled in favor of the government, holding there was no obligation on federal agencies to
review the pipeline project's environmental impact. Jackson described NEPA as a "means of informing agency officials about the environmental consequences of major actions that the federal government is poised to take," rather than "a mechanism for
instituting federal evaluation and oversight of a private construction project that Congress has not seen fit to authorize the federal government to regulate."
Source: Cong. Research Service on 2022 SCOTUS Confirmation Hearings
Mar 14, 2022
Amy Coney Barrett:
Declines to acknowledge well-established climate science
Barrett's judicial philosophy--shaped by her mentor, the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia--suggests that she could take a narrow view of EPA's climate authority under the Clean Air Act.Barrett declined to acknowledge well-established
climate science during her confirmation hearing last year. "I don't think I am competent to opine on what causes global warming or not,"
Barrett told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (Climatewire, Oct. 15, 2020).
She later added: "I don't think that my views on global warming or climate change are relevant to the job I would do as a judge."
Source: GreenWire E&E News on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Nov 3, 2021
Brett Kavanaugh:
Global warming is not a blank check for executive action
Kavanaugh was sitting on the D.C. Circuit when the Clean Power Plan litigation came up before the bench in 2016. During those arguments, he said that an emergency like global warming was not a "blank check" for executive action.
He referred to the Clean Air Act as a "thin statute" that "wasn't designed" to address climate change. Kavanaugh has a record of questioning EPA authority on Clean Air Act issues.
Source: GreenWire E&E News on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Nov 3, 2021
John Roberts:
EPA cannot regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants
In his dissent in the 2007 landmark case Massachusetts v. EPA -- in which the majority held that states could sue EPA for climate harms and that the agency could regulate greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the
Clean Air Act -- Roberts said he would have dismissed the challengers' claims. "Such a conclusion involves no judgment on whether global warming exists, what causes it, or the extent of the problem,"
Roberts wrote. "Nor does it render petitioners without recourse. This Court's standing jurisprudence simply recognizes that redress of grievances of the sort at
issue here 'is the function of Congress and the Chief Executive,' not the federal courts."
Source: GreenWire E&E News on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Nov 3, 2021
Samuel Alito:
Clean Air Act should not include greenhouse gases
Although legal experts do not expect the justices to use the upcoming climate case to overturn Massachusetts v. EPA, Justice Samuel Alito is among the conservatives calling for the court to revisit that precedent. The justice, who dissented in the
2007 case, expressed that view in his minority opinion in the 2014 case Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA , which said that while the Clean Air Act definition of "air pollutant" includes greenhouse gas emissions,
EPA is not required to include them every time the statute mentions air pollutants.Justice Thomas voted with the dissent in Massachusetts v.
EPA and has joined his conservative colleagues in calling for invoking the nondelegation doctrine and limiting Chevron deference to curb federal agencies' powers.
Source: GreenWire E&E News on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Nov 3, 2021
Sonia Sotomayor:
Expansive reading of EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act
Sotomayor, the third member of the court's liberal wing, is also thought to be a vote in favor of a more expansive reading of EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act. She voted alongside Kagan in Gundy.Kagan led the majority opinion in 2019's Gundy,
rejecting arguments that Congress had handed too much power to the executive branch. The case narrowly avoided a revival of the long-dormant nondelegation doctrine but provided justices a platform for revisiting the administrative law issue.
Source: GreenWire E&E News on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Nov 3, 2021
Amy Coney Barrett:
No extensions for refineries' Renewable Fuel Program
On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court decided HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining v. Renewable Fuels Association, which concerned small refiners' eligibility for hardship exemptions under the federal renewable fuels standards ("RFS") program. Three small fuel
refineries had each applied for a hardship exemption under the RFS program, and the EPA had granted each request. A group of renewable fuel producers then challenged those exemptions. By a vote of six to three, the Court held that the text of the
statute does not require that the exemption be held continually in order to remain valid.Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The dissenting justices argued that, while the majority
attributed to Congress a meaning of "extension" that is "possible," it did not give the term its "ordinary meaning." In the view of the dissenters, the "ordinary meaning" of "extension" excludes a firm that has allowed its prior exemption to lapse.
Source: JD Supra on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Jul 14, 2021
Elena Kagan:
No extensions for refineries' Renewable Fuel Program
On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court decided HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining v. Renewable Fuels Association, which concerned small refiners' eligibility for hardship exemptions under the federal renewable fuels standards ("RFS") program. Three small fuel
refineries had each applied for a hardship exemption under the RFS program, and the EPA had granted each request. A group of renewable fuel producers then challenged those exemptions. By a vote of six to three, the Court held that the text of the
statute does not require that the exemption be held continually in order to remain valid.Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The dissenting justices argued that, while the majority
attributed to Congress a meaning of "extension" that is "possible," it did not give the term its "ordinary meaning." In the view of the dissenters, the "ordinary meaning" of "extension" excludes a firm that has allowed its prior exemption to lapse.
Source: JD Supra on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Jul 14, 2021
Neil Gorsuch:
Allow refineries Renewable Fuel Program extensions
On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court decided HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining v. Renewable Fuels Association, which concerned small refiners' eligibility for hardship exemptions under the federal renewable fuels standards program. Three small fuel
refineries had each applied for a hardship exemption, and the EPA had granted each request. A group of renewable fuel producers then challenged those exemptions.In an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a majority of the Supreme Court reversed the court
of appeals and held that a refiner that has allowed its prior exemption to lapse can apply for & receive an "extension" of its exemption. "It is entirely natural--and consistent with ordinary usage--to seek an 'extension' of time even after some lapse,"
Gorsuch wrote. "Think of the forgetful student who asks for an 'extension' of a term paper after the deadline has passed, the tenant who does the same after overstaying his lease, or parties who negotiate an extension of a contract after its expiration."
Source: JD Supra on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Jul 14, 2021
Sonia Sotomayor:
No extensions for refineries' Renewable Fuel Program
On June 25, 2021, the Supreme Court decided HollyFrontier Cheyenne Refining v. Renewable Fuels Association, which concerned small refiners' eligibility for hardship exemptions under the federal renewable fuels standards ("RFS") program. Three small fuel
refineries had each applied for a hardship exemption under the RFS program, and the EPA had granted each request. A group of renewable fuel producers then challenged those exemptions. By a vote of six to three, the Court held that the text of the
statute does not require that the exemption be held continually in order to remain valid.Justice Amy Coney Barrett dissented in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. The dissenting justices argued that, while the majority
attributed to Congress a meaning of "extension" that is "possible," it did not give the term its "ordinary meaning." In the view of the dissenters, the "ordinary meaning" of "extension" excludes a firm that has allowed its prior exemption to lapse.
Source: JD Supra on 2021 EPA & climate SCOTUS cases
Jul 14, 2021
Page last updated: Mar 21, 2022