Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivers first SCOTUS ruling—a blow to environmentalists

The case brought forward by the Sierra Club, an environmentalist group, was dismissed 7-2, with Barrett and the five other conservative-leaning Supreme Court justices being joined by Justice Elena Kagan. Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the ruling.

The court ruled that the Sierra Club was not entitled to documents from the US Fish and Wildlife Service concerning power plant regulations which they requested under the Freedom of Information Act. The document discussed the FWS's position that a series of environmental regulations surrounding cooling water intake structures for power plants could not harm certain endangered species.

The document, written in 2013, was contradicted by a public report released the following year suggesting that such regulations would not adversely affect endangered species. The Sierra Club requested access to the 2013 documents, with the court ultimately ruling that they are not entitled to see them because "they reflect a preliminary view - not a final decision - about the likely effect of the EPA's proposed rule on endangered species."

A federal court initially ruled that the documents had to be disclosed, but the Trump administration appealed the decision in 2018, ultimately leading to a Ninth Circuit Court ruling that some, but not all of the relevant documents must be disclosed. The Supreme Court ruling came on an additional appeal.

Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court by former President Donald Trump in late 2020 following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and confirmed by the Senate along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats primarily opposed.