This post reviews the U.S. Supreme Court’s significant regulatory and administrative law decisions from the Court’s 2024 Term and previews cases on the docket for Fall 2025. While the term produced no true “blockbusters,” the Court displayed particular concern with how lower federal courts have been applying the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), and it clarified the already complex judicial review provisions of the Clean Air Act (CAA). At the same time, the Court declined invitations to revisit contentious issues surrounding CAA citizen suits and avoided intervening in the wave of state-law climate change litigation. Consistent with its current composition, the Court continues to take a conservative approach, closely hewing to statutory text and structure.
Our review is organized in three parts: first, environmental and energy law cases; second, administrative law rulings that delineate the boundaries of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA); third, we discuss the environmental, energy and administrative law cases the Court has agreed to hear in its October 2025 Term.
Part I: Environmental and Energy Law Cases
City and County of San Francisco v. EPA (decided March 4, 2025)
In its first major environmental ruling of the 2024 Term, the Supreme Court struck down an EPA-imposed Clean Water Act “end results” permit condition requiring San Francisco to ensure the overall quality of receiving waters. The Court held that the Act contains no statutory basis for such an ambiguous water quality standard and emphasized the absence of a concrete compliance plan. (See Spring 2025 Environmental Update: New Cases, New Rules and Other Developments.)
Seven County Infrastructure Coalition v. Eagle County (decided May 29, 2025)
In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court reversed the D.C. Circuit’s decision faulting the Surface Transportation Board’s 3,600-page EIS for an 88-mile Utah railroad project. The Supreme Court held that NEPA, as a procedural statute, does not require agencies to evaluate environmental impacts “separate in time or place” from the project itself, such as increased oil refining in the Gulf Coast, and faulted the lower court for failing to accord proper deference to the agency. The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with this ruling. Notably, the Court’s decision comes as the federal NEPA regulations are undergoing revision to align more closely with NEPA’s original intent. (See SCOTUS Limits Scope of NEPA Reviews, Reinstates Approval of Uinta Basin Railway.)
Oklahoma v. EPA and EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refinery LLC (both decided June 18, 2025)
In June 2025, the Court issued two significant rulings clarifying the Clean Air Act’s complex venue provisions. In Oklahoma v. EPA, the Court held that challenges to EPA’s determinations on state implementation plans (SIPs) for the revised ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) must be brought in the appropriate regional court of appeals—in this case, the Tenth Circuit—because the dispute turned on local rather than nationally applicable issues. By contrast, in EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refinery LLC, the Court held that litigation over a small refinery waiver under the renewable fuels program falls within the D.C. Circuit’s exclusive jurisdiction under the statute’s “nationwide scope or effect” provision. Justice Thomas authored both opinions.
Diamond Alternative Energy LLC v. EPA (decided June 20, 2025)
The Court reversed the D.C. Circuit in this standing dispute, holding that fuel producers challenging California’s rules requiring automakers to manufacture more electric vehicles had adequately demonstrated injury under Article III. In an opinion by Justice Gorsuch, the Court found the producers met the constitutional requirements for standing and remanded the case for further proceedings.
U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission et al. v. State of Texas et al. and Interim Storage Partners LLC v. Texas et al. (decided June 18, 2025)
In a 6–3 decision, the Court reversed the Fifth Circuit and held that Texas and a private mineral owner could not challenge the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) approval of a temporary nuclear waste storage facility because they had failed to formally intervene in the agency’s licensing proceeding. While the ruling rested on procedural grounds, the majority signaled that NRC has authority under the Atomic Energy Act and the Nuclear Waste Policy Act to license such facilities.
Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana et al. v. United States (cert. denied June 2025)
The Supreme Court declined to hear the long-running climate change suit brought by a group of youths who first sued the federal government in 2015. The plaintiffs alleged that federal energy policies exacerbate climate change and violate constitutional rights, but the Ninth Circuit twice dismissed the claims for lack of standing—in 2020 and again in 2024 after a district court allowed amendment. The justices denied the plaintiffs’ final petition, leaving intact the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that the youths failed to show a federal agency or official could redress their alleged injuries.
Port of Tacoma v. Puget Soundkeeper Alliance (cert. denied June 2025)
The Court declined to review a Ninth Circuit decision allowing plaintiffs to pursue federal citizen suits based on violations of state-defined, state-specific permit conditions. The Ninth Circuit’s ruling turned on Clean Water Act provisions that generally bar federal review of state-issued permits, effectively preventing both plaintiffs and defendants from challenging permit conditions as overly permissive or restrictive in a citizen suit.
Part II: Regulatory and Administrative Law Rulings
Trump v. CASA, Inc. (decided June 27, 2025)
In an opinion by Justice Barrett, the Court held that federal district courts lack authority under the Judiciary Act of 1789 to issue “universal injunctions.” While courts may grant equitable relief, the Court explained, such relief is limited to the parties before the court, and there is no historical basis for extending remedies universally. The litigation stemmed from Executive Order No. 14160, which sought to eliminate birthright citizenship. Several lower courts had issued broad injunctions against the order, and the courts of appeals declined to narrow them. The Supreme Court, however, granted the government a partial stay and remanded, directing the lower courts to fashion more tailored remedies. The Court suggested that class actions, rather than universal injunctions, may provide an appropriate procedural vehicle, and litigants are already pursuing this alternative with some success.
McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. Mckesson Corp. (decided June 20, 2025)
The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in a case interpreting the unique provisions of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), which allows consumers to sue senders of unsolicited faxes with minimal evidentiary requirements, often through class actions. The dispute turned on whether online fax services fall within the statute. In light of an intervening FCC declaratory ruling that such services are not covered by the TCPA, the Supreme Court sided with the defendant and curtailed the plaintiffs’ claims.
McLaughlin Chiropractic Associates, Inc. v. McKesson Corporation (decided June 20, 2025)
In an opinion by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court clarified that the Hobbs Act, which provides for judicial review of certain agency actions and determinations when an agency’s enabling statute is silent on the scope and parameters of review, does not require federal courts to adopt an agency’s statutory interpretation in enforcement proceedings. Instead, a district court must independently assess the agency’s interpretation of the statute—in this case, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). The Court’s reasoning is consistent with its 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 402 (2024), which curtailed Chevron deference and ended the presumption that courts must defer to an agency’s view of its own authority. The Court further noted that while most statutes allow such judicial review, a limited number—including the Clean Water Act, CERCLA, and the Clean Air Act—expressly preclude pre-enforcement challenges to agency determinations.
Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research (decided June 27, 2025)
The Court reversed the Fifth Circuit in a challenge to the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Universal Service Fund program. Congress first directed the FCC in 1934 to ensure universal communications access and later amended 47 U.S.C. § 254 to require interstate carriers to contribute to the Universal Service Fund, which subsidizes service for designated beneficiaries. The Fifth Circuit had held that this scheme violated the nondelegation doctrine, but the Supreme Court disagreed. In reaffirming the “intelligible principle” standard, the Court concluded that Congress had supplied sufficient guidance and that the statute did not represent an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority.
Medina v. Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, et al. (decided June 26, 2025)
The Court addressed whether South Carolina’s exclusion of Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program could be challenged under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Section 1983 permits private suits against state actors for violations of federal rights, but the Court has long held that not all federal statutes create “rights” enforceable under Section 1983 as a matter of course, particularly under Spending Clause programs like Medicaid and Medicare. In reaffirming this principle, the Court emphasized that Congress must speak with a clear voice if it intends to create privately enforceable rights under such statutes. Absent that clarity, § 1983 is unlikely to provide a basis for challenging new federal regulatory actions.
Part III: Upcoming Cases
Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish
The Court will decide whether fossil fuel companies can remove Louisiana coastal pollution lawsuits to federal court under the federal-officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). The parishes’ claims arise from decades of oil and gas production, including wartime crude oil extraction during World War II. The Fifth Circuit unanimously held that petitioners satisfied the “acting under” requirement because of WWII contracts to supply the federal government with aviation gasoline, but a divided panel concluded that the oil production itself was “unrelated” to those contracts. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve: (1) whether a causal-nexus or contractual-direction test applies under the 2011 amendment to the federal-officer removal statute, and (2) whether a federal contractor may remove when sued for oil-production activities undertaken to fulfill federal refining contracts.
Enbridge Energy, LP v. Nessel
The Court will consider whether district courts may excuse the 30-day deadline for removal to federal court under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(1). The case arises from Michigan’s efforts to shut down Enbridge’s Line 5 pipeline under the Straits of Mackinac, which the state contends poses environmental and safety risks. After removal to federal court, the timeliness of Enbridge’s notice became central, with the Sixth Circuit holding that courts lack discretion to forgive late filings.