Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill’s Office has filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision that she says threatens the energy industry of states.
Almost two dozen other states joined the brief that focuses on the National Environmental Policy Act, which is a law that requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of proposed actions and to allow public input.
At issue is a proposed railroad in Utah that would transport crude oil to the interstate network. The Surface Transportation Board authorized the construction. But the D.C. Circuit vacated the authorization, citing the need to consider potential downstream environmental effects of oil that might be transported on the line across the country, specifically to the Gulf Coast.
The court referenced Louisiana, despite Baton Rouge being approximately 1,536 miles away from the new line and the state’s longstanding and highly regulated oil industries.
“This is another example of federal bureaucratic overreach that will harm Louisiana and other States whose economies depend on energy, and all Americans who depend on those products. We’ll continue to defend Louisiana and fight the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous energy policies every step of the way,” Murrill said in a press release.
“The case is as much about federalism and state sovereignty as it is about environmental law,” the brief states.
The filings goes on to say the D.C. Circuit’s decision undermines the federal and state regulatory schemes that already govern a barrel of Utah oil that may travel to Louisiana. As a result, the coalition says that decision threatens the foundation of cooperative federalism on which environmental law is built. And even more fundamentally, it says the red tape demanded by the D.C. Circuit only will harm states whose economies depend on the energy industry and every American who depends on the products refined by such states.
Louisiana’s brief serves as a reminder that “states are not children, and the federal government is not our mother.”
Joining the Louisiana friend of the court brief are the AGs from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming.
Alaska AG Treg Taylor also weighed in on the issue.
“There is an absurdity in a federal judge overturning a federal transportation agency’s decision to authorize a short rail line in Utah because the agency did not consider the environmental effects of crude oil production in Louisiana and Texas," Taylor said in a press release. "This is NEPA run amok. Under this way of thinking, the purview of an agency would be unending.
“That barrel of hypothetical Utah oil already goes through an assembly line of state and federal regulations. Weaponizing NEPA in this way harms any state that depends on the energy industry for its economy, which strikes a nerve in Alaska. That’s why we joined these states urging the Supreme Court to reverse the judge’s decision.”
The Supreme Court case is styled Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al. v. Eagle County, Colorado, et al., and Louisiana's brief is signed by Murrill, Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguinaga, Deputy Solicitor General Kelsey L. Smith and Assistant Solicitor General Caitlin A. Huettemann.
Supreme Court of the United States case number 23-975