States Argue for White House Environmental Permitting Authority

A coalition of blue states urged a federal court on Friday not to turn a dispute over a permitting regulation into a probe of how far the White House environment office’s powers extend.

The case at the the US District Court for the District of North Dakota stems from a challenge by 21 mostly red states against a May permitting rule by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The states argued that CEQ’s rule illegally changed environmental reviews in order to achieve broad and vague policy goals.

During the course of the litigation, the US Court of Appeals for ...