Last Friday, June 30th, 2024, in Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo et al., case number 22-451, and Relentless Inc. et al. v. Department of Commerce et al., case number 22-1219, the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated a powerful and longstanding precedent that has controlled administrative law for 40 years. The high court’s 6-3 decision overruled Chevron USA v. Natural Resources Defense Council, pursuant to which federal judges have deferred […]

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As a woman lawyer, the honorable Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg holds an important position of influence to me. I was a judicial clerk on the D.C. Circuit from 1990 to 1991, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a judge on that still-auspicious court. I worked for RBG’s colleague and fellow female liberal judge, Patricia M. Wald, who was the Chief Judge of the D.C. Circuit that year. Judge Wald was […]

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In perhaps the most consequential environment and energy case heard by the Supreme Court this term, the justices overruled a decision by the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the Forest Service did not have the power to authorize the Atlantic Coast Pipeline’s natural gas project to pass beneath the trail. In a 7-2 decision in United States Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, No. 18-1584 (June 15, […]

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On April 23, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund that a property owner is required to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) Permit under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) prior to a direct discharge, or the “functional equivalent” of a direct discharge, of a pollutant to navigable waters. In an almost eerie sense of timing, two days earlier, on April 21, […]

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