Adorers of the Blood of Christ, United States Province v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari in which a religious order of Roman Catholic women sought review of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision affirming dismissal of their Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)-based challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s approval of a natural gas pipeline that would run through land in Pennsylvania owned by the order.

A vowed order of Roman Catholic women and individual members of the order filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking review of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision affirming dismissal of their Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA)-based challenge to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC’s) approval of a natural gas pipeline that would run through land in Pennsylvania owned by the order. The petition said the order and its members “agree with Pope Francis’s teachings that the threat of climate change, caused in large part by the intensive use of fossil fuels, represents a principal challenge facing humanity.” The petitioners asserted that the pipeline’s operation on their property “violates their deeply-held religious beliefs and conscience by forcing them to use their own land to facilitate a fossil fuel pipeline that will harm the earth.” They contended that the Third Circuit’s decision—which concluded that RFRA did not abrogate or create an exception to the Natural Gas Act’s administrative requirements and jurisdictional provisions—was not consistent with Supreme Court precedent applying RFRA. Their petition presented the questions of whether a person must “intervene in an application and follow the required administrative procedures for objecting to proposed agency action in order to prevent the government agency from later burdening her religious exercise in violation of RFRA” and whether circuit court review of an administrative agency’s order satisfies “RFRA’s guarantee to assert a claim in a judicial proceeding and obtain appropriate relief against the government.” The petitioners argued that requiring adherence to administrative review requirements foreclosed statutory rights guaranteed by RFRA and would have a significant adverse impact on protection of religious liberties.