Five circuits, one question: how much room do the states get?

Texas keeps its grid law

The Fifth Circuit told GH America Energy that Texas gets to keep its grid law. The court affirmed the dismissal of the company's preemption claims, holding that the federal CFIUS regime does not impliedly preempt the Texas Lone Star Infrastructure Protection Act: "Because the CFIUS regime neither conflict- nor field-preempts LSIPA, we AFFIRM." The opinion treats utility regulation, including management of the Texas electric grid, as a traditional state police power, and applies the presumption against preemption in areas of traditional state regulation. m:…3071

The stakes were not abstract. LSIPA is the 2021 Texas law barring certain contracts with foreign-owned companies from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and China, and GH America Energy's interconnection request for its Blue Star Solar project was denied by ERCOT under the law. The court found the company failed to identify any conflict between LSIPA and the statutory text of the Defense Production Act, and concluded the state law sits in purposive harmony with the federal CFIUS regime rather than being field-preempted by it. m:…3071

Oklahoma gets the pen in Indian country

In the Tenth Circuit, the Pawnee Nation lost its bid to block Oklahoma's environmental authority in Indian country. The court denied the tribe's petition for review and affirmed the EPA's interpretation of a SAFETEA provision, concluding its plain meaning shows it remains active and did not expire in 2009, and that the EPA acted within the provision's requirements when it granted Oklahoma's request. The court exercised its exclusive jurisdiction over the challenge in reaching the decision. m:…1547

A $625 million gas plant gets its stay

The Sixth Circuit gave the Tennessee Valley Authority a reprieve, granting TVA's motion to stay a district court order that had vacated the agency's approval of a gas plant at Kingston: "We grant TVA's motion to stay." The district court had held that TVA violated federal environmental review law by failing to consider a range of alternatives and by unlawfully precommitting to the gas plant. The panel disagreed on both points, finding the alternatives requirement does not demand evaluating multiple options when only one is feasible, and that TVA's precedent agreements with East Tennessee Natural Gas contained conditions allowing TVA to exit rather than locking it in. m:…4235

The dollars explain the urgency. The Kingston project is approximately 50% complete, and a work stoppage could increase project costs by roughly $625 million; the court found the vacatur order would likely cause TVA irreparable harm through higher costs and potential grid instability. m:…4235

Two immigration rulings, opposite directions

The week's immigration docket cut both ways. The Eighth Circuit denied Momodou Jatta's petition for review of an immigration appeals board order, finding substantial evidence that changed circumstances in his home country rebutted the presumption of future persecution — the Barrow administration's liberalizing reforms, including the removal of top Jammeh officials and the institution of a truth and reconciliation commission. The court also affirmed the denial of humanitarian asylum and declined to reach arguments about voluntary departure and burden-shifting that were never presented to the board. m:…8532

In the First Circuit, the government lost. The court affirmed a district court's grant of a writ of error coram nobis to Mara Morillo, holding that her counsel's advice that she could work out her immigration status after serving her sentence was constitutionally deficient, that general warnings in a plea agreement do not override specific affirmative misadvice, and that she showed a reasonable probability she would have proceeded to trial if properly advised. Her delay in seeking relief was excused because she did not understand her removal was mandatory until after sentencing — and the government conceded her conviction carries mandatory removal and permanent inadmissibility. Judge Dunlap dissented, arguing the petition was untimely under circuit precedent. m:…5952

The throughline is jurisdiction

Read together, the week is an inventory of American federalism in action: a state keeps its power to police its electric grid, a state gains the pen on environmental programs in Indian country, a federal utility keeps building while the courts sort out the paperwork, an immigration agency's judgment stands on deference, and one badly advised defendant gets a second look. The throughline is not ideology but jurisdiction — five courts spent the week deciding who gets to decide, and the answers keep landing close to home: the grid, the land, the plant, the border, the plea. m:…3071 m:…1547 m:…4235 m:…8532 m:…5952