Kevin Minoli, head of Alston & Bird’s Environmental, Land Use & Natural Resources Group in Washington, D.C. and former acting general counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was quoted in a Bloomberg Law article, “Supreme Court Weighs Dispute over Clashing Permitting Mandates” (subscription required), examining whether a federal permit application constitutes final agency action subject to judicial review.
Kevin said the Court is likely to conclude that submitting a permit application is not a final agency action. He also noted that the justices devoted little attention to how the opposite conclusion could affect the thousands of permits held by the federal government and “open the floodgates for new litigation.”