At the midpoint of the Supreme Court’s current term, the justices have now heard arguments in some of the biggest environmental cases in years, but decisions in those disputes are still pending. By this summer, the justices will have decided a case that could more clearly establish the scope of the Clean Water Act and a challenge that could more firmly define states’ role in federal Superfund cleanups. The court has so far been slow to issue opinions while Chief Justice John Roberts was spending half of his days at impeachment trial proceedings across the street on Capitol Hill. The most consequential environment and energy case that remains on the court’s calendar this term is a dispute over the Atlantic Coast pipeline’s crossing of the Appalachian Trail. The justices will decide whether the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appropriately reached a decision in favor of conservation groups that the Forest Service did not have the power to authorize the natural gas project to pass beneath the trail. “It’s going to press some of the justices on the textual question, and the environmentalists are pushing textualism front and center in this case,” Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said during a recent conference organized by the Environmental Law Institute and the American Law Institute. “It will be a fascinating case to watch,” he said.
The justices are also expected to hear arguments this spring on a pair of cases that could have ripple effects for oil and gas development on tribal lands in Oklahoma and for agencies like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. “The court is taking a lot of cases that really expressly present questions of whether they should overrule precedent,” Williams & Connolly LLP partner Sarah Harris said during a recent panel discussion hosted by the Washington Legal Foundation. Legal experts are also watching to see whether the justices will agree to hear a number of pending battles on issues such as environmental waivers for border wall construction, racial discrimination on an offshore drilling rig and public records requests related to Endangered Species Act decisions. To view the full article visit the EE News.