Texas v. Biden

The federal district court for the Southern District of Texas dismissed a lawsuit brought by Texas and 22 other states to challenge President Biden’s January 2021 revocation of the presidential permit for the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline project. The permit allowed construction of a 1.2-mile segment of the pipeline that crossed the Canada-U.S. border. The project’s developers announced their termination of the project in June 2021. The court found that the case was moot since the project had been terminated, and that the exception to mootness for cases capable of repetition but evading review did not apply, both because the plaintiffs did not demonstrate that it would be “virtually impossible to litigate the validity” of Biden’s action because of the short duration of the process and also because any recurrence would require judicial intervention.

On July 13, 2021, the federal district court for the Southern District of Texas stayed discovery until the motion to dismiss was decided, citing “unique circumstances” due to separate of powers concerns related to seeking discovery against the president and vice president, and also due to the “expansive scope” of proposed discovery, especially since the case appeared to involve a “purely legal question” about the scope of presidential authority.