Court leaves CDC eviction moratorium in place
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is leaving a pandemic-inspired nationwide ban on evictions in place, over the votes of four objecting conservative justices.
The court on Tuesday rejected a plea by landlords to end the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moratorium on evicting millions of tenants who aren't paying rent during the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, the Biden administration extended the moratorium by a month, until the end of July. It said then it did not expect another extension.
U.S. Judge Dabney Friedrich in Washington had struck down the moratorium as exceeding the CDC's authority, but put her ruling on hold. The high court voted 5-4 to keep the ban in place until the end of July.
In a brief opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he agreed with Friedrich's ruling, but voted to leave the ban on evictions in place because it's due to end in a month and "because those few weeks will allow for additional and more orderly distribution of the congressionally appropriated rental assistance funds."
Also last week, the Treasury Department issued new guidance encouraging states and local governments to streamline distribution of the nearly $47 billion in available emergency rental assistance funding.
Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's three liberal members also voted to keep the moratorium in place.
Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas said they would have ended it.
The eviction ban was initially put in place last year to provide protection for renters out of concern that having families lose their homes and move into shelters or share crowded conditions with relatives or friends during the pandemic would further spread the highly contagious virus.
By the end of March, 6.4 million American households were behind on their rent, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. As of June 7, roughly 3.2 million people in the U.S. said they faced eviction in the next two months, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Household Pulse Survey.
Justices won't sidetrack plans for natural gas pipeline
By Jessica Gresko
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court dealt a blow to New Jersey and other states seeking a way to oppose pipelines running through their land, siding with a pipeline company Tuesday in a dispute over New Jersey land needed for a natural gas pipeline.
Both liberal and conservative justices joined to rule 5-4 for the PennEast Pipeline Co. The ruling says that companies building interstate pipelines, once their projects have been given the greenlight by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, can obtain the land they need even in the face of state opposition.
Both the Trump and Biden administrations had supported PennEast. Nineteen states had urged the Supreme Court to rule the other way and side with New Jersey.
In New Jersey's case, the 116-mile planned pipeline is to run from Pennsylvania's Luzerne County to Mercer County in New Jersey. FERC had allowed the company's project to move forward in 2018 by granting PennEast a so-called certificate of public convenience and necessity, but lawsuits followed.
The company ultimately took New Jersey to court to acquire state-controlled land for its project. PennEast argued the commission's greenlighting of its project allowed it to use eminent domain to acquire state-controlled properties. The Supreme Court agreed.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority that when FERC issues a certificate of public convenience and necessity, federal law authorizes the certificate's
holder "to condemn all necessary rights-of-way, whether owned by private parties or States."
Roberts wrote that although "nonconsenting States are generally immune from suit, they surrendered their immunity from the exercise of the federal eminent domain power when they ratified the Constitution." He said that because the federal Natural Gas Act "delegates the federal eminent domain power to private parties, those parties can initiate condemnation proceedings, including against state-owned property." Roberts was joined by conservative justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh and liberal justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a dissent that the majority's view that states had surrendered their immunity by ratifying the Constitution has "no textual, structural, or historical support." She was joined by fellow conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch and liberal Justice Elena Kagan.
The decision from the high court doesn't end litigation over the pipeline. A separate challenge involving New Jersey is pending in a federal appeals court in Washington.
In a statement, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal promised that the decision "is not the end of the road in our fight against the PennEast pipeline."
"We still have other, ongoing legal challenges to this proposed pipeline, which is unnecessary and would be destructive to New Jersey lands," Grewal said, urging "the federal government to take another look at this harmful proposal."
In a statement, Anthony Cox, chair of the PennEast Board of Managers said the company was pleased with the decision.
"This decision is about more than just the PennEast Pipeline Project; it protects consumers who rely on infrastructure projects — found to be in the public benefit after thorough scientific and environmental reviews — from being denied access to much-needed energy by narrow State political interests," Cox said.
New Jersey had argued that PennEast couldn't take the state to court to acquire the property it is seeking — only the United States government can. The state argued that the Natural Gas Act does not explicitly authorize private lawsuits by private parties against states. A federal appeals court sided with New Jersey while a lower court had sided with PennEast.
The case is PennEast Pipeline Co. v. New Jersey, 19-1039.
Court says no right to hearing for some immigrants
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the government can indefinitely detain certain immigrants who say they will face persecution or torture if they are deported to their native countries.
Over the dissent of three liberal justices, the court held 6-3 that the immigrants are not entitled to a hearing about whether they should be released while the government evaluates their claims.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court that "those aliens are not entitled to a bond hearing."
The case involves people who had been previously deported and, when detained after re-entering the United States illegally, claimed that they would be persecuted or tortured if sent back. One man is a citizen of El Salvador who said he was immediately threatened by a gang after being deported from the U.S.
An immigration officer determined that the immigrants had a "reasonable fear" for their safety if returned to their countries, setting in motion an evaluation process that can take months or years.
The issue for the court was whether the government could hold the immigrants without having an immigration judge weigh in. The immigrants and the Trump administration, which briefed and argued the case before President Joe Biden's inauguration in January, pointed to different provisions of immigration law to make their respective cases.
Alito, in his opinion for the court, wrote that the administration's argument that the relevant provision does not provide for a bond hearing was more persuasive.
In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer saw it differently. "But why would Congress want to deny a bond hearing to individuals who reasonably fear persecution or torture, and who, as a result, face proceedings that may last for many months or years...? I can find no satisfactory answer to this question," Breyer wrote.
The federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, had ruled in the immigrants' favor, but other appellate courts had sided with the government. Tuesday's decision sets a nationwide rule, but one that affects what lawyers for the immigrants called a relatively small subset of noncitizens.
