Environmental Defense Fund, Inc. v. Wright

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The federal district court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that the Climate Working Group assembled by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright did not fall within an exception to the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) for groups “assembled to exchange facts or information with a Federal official.” The court found that a “single act of incorporating feedback on a draft of an otherwise independent report” was “not analogous to the prolonged exchanges between indeterminate groups” that courts had found to fall within the FACA exception. The court further found that no reasonable jury could find that the report authored by the Climate Working Group did not constitute “advice or recommendations for a renewed approach to climate policy” and not a “mere ‘review’ of the literature.” The court denied the environmental group plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction requiring the defendants to provide them with the Climate Working Group records; the court found the plaintiffs’ inability to draw on the records in comments on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed rescission of the 2009 Clean Air Act endangerment finding regarding greenhouse gas emissions did not constitute an irreparable informational injury.

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