Skeptical Courts May Undermine Trump's Energy Project Push

Joseph Fagan was quoted in an article, "Skeptical Courts May Undermine Trump's Energy Project Push," published in Law360. The article discusses the impact of recent court rulings ordering federal agencies to analyze the climate change impacts of fossil fuel projects, as they relate to President Donald Trump's March 28 executive order which aims to remove regulatory barriers to energy production, as well as his Aug. 15 executive order calling for a streamlined and accelerated infrastructure permitting process. "The Trump administration's executive orders are intended to speed up the process, but may slow it down if the result is that agency decisions are more vulnerable to judicial review because they skipped a step," Fagan told Law360. He added that most developers know what laws like NEPA require them to do and are savvy enough to try to avoid making their projects vulnerable to a court appeal, regardless of what the current presidential administration may be thinking. "They have to look at the long game," Fagan told Law360. "There's no impetus in Congress to amend the Natural Gas Act, or NEPA, despite that being a bugaboo of certain political groups."