Environmental Defense Fund v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

On September 7, 2021, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied respondent-intervenors’ petitions for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc of the court’s June 2021 decision vacating Federal Energy Regulatory Commission orders authorizing a natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis area.

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The U.S. Supreme Court denied a gas utility and natural gas pipeline company’s petition for writ of certiorari seeking review of a D.C. Circuit order that vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s authorization of a natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis region. The petition presented the question of “whether remand without vacatur is the appropriate remedy where the record indicates that an agency’s inadequately reasoned decision could be corrected on remand and vacatur of the decision could result in serious, and potentially life-threatening, disruptive consequences.”

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Chief Justice John Roberts denied pipeline companies’ application seeking to stay issuance of the D.C. Circuit’s mandate in a case in which the D.C. Circuit vacated the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) authorization of a natural gas pipeline in the St. Louis area. The D.C. Circuit found that FERC acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to address evidence of self-dealing by the applicant. The court also faulted FERC for engaging in only a “cursory balancing” of public benefits and adverse impacts.

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