Court overturns mine expansion rejection
The court issued its decision at 4:15 p.m. ET on Monday, a day after Environmental Protection Agency officials said that a mine application to expand Uranium One’s Canadian mines to meet growing demand for uranium in the U.S. would go forward.
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The decision by Justice Clarence Thomas also dealt a blow to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s claim that Interior officials had not sought to delay the Uranium One mine proposal because they could not overcome the Obama administration’s opposition to it. Jewell had sought to delay her department’s opposition against a Mine Protection Action Plan that would have given the federal government control over two dozen mines — including two in the eastern United States — in that region.
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The ruling means that Interior officials, who in July sent a letter to the state coal groups and other groups challenging the mine expansion, may have won a bit of ground with Jewell, which has said the decision to approve the mine expansion was driven by Interior Secretary Lisa Jackson.
The court struck down the EPA’s attempt to delay the project, which is likely to open up eight mines — some of which would employ up to 1,100 people — and would create 10,000 permanent jobs over the next 15 years.
The case is one of six in which Interior has sued in the past, and the court ruled Monday that Interior could no longer be allowed to make such motions during the agency’s review period.
But, the court said, the Interior officials had to submit another explanation to the court as to why they did not seek to delay the mine permit application, even though Jewell said she had a specific rationale for taking that stand during the Interior Department’s formal public comment period.
J진주출장마사지ustice Elena Kagan wrote the opinion’s majority opinion and wrote that the EPA was justified in giving the company 30 days to submit new information about its proposed mine. She did not say whether Kagan agreed with the dissent’s view that the agency’s denial of the company’s request was unwarranted.
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“Although our ruling may be different for every case, the fact that the agency is faced with the choice between two competing arg마사지uments shows that the agency’s decision to deny [the mine expansion] represents no more than a second-강원출장마사지string decision in a decision the court’
