The Supreme Court of the Unit­ed States today declined to take up a law­suit filed by the states of Mon­tana and Wyoming that belat­ed­ly sought an injunc­tion to revive efforts to con­struct port infra­struc­ture in Wash­ing­ton State to enable the export­ing of large quan­ti­ties of coal, the dirt­i­est fos­sil fuel there is.

The Court’s deci­sion means that lawyers for Mon­tana and Wyoming’s pro-coal state gov­ern­ments will not get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to fur­ther plead their case to the six mem­ber right wing major­i­ty of jus­tices col­lec­tive­ly appoint­ed by George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Don­ald J. Trump.

The two states had con­tend­ed in their final, sup­ple­men­tal brief sub­mit­ted in sup­port of their motion for an injunc­tion that a refusal to hear their case would effec­tive­ly leave them with no recourse for reviv­ing the coal export ter­mi­nal project they des­per­ate­ly want built, but which has already been abandoned.

“Wash­ing­ton will con­tin­ue to block port devel­op­ment and dis­suade bid­ders from tak­ing up this oth­er­wise lucra­tive project. Evi­denced by its suc­cess­ful eight-year cru­sade to kill the ter­mi­nal project, Washington’s pol­i­cy-dri­ven inter­pre­ta­tion of its laws and reg­u­la­tions is not going to change on its own. With­out relief from this Court — the only forum with the pow­er to grant it — Wyoming and Mon­tana like­ly will nev­er see their abun­dant coal reserves to for­eign markets.”

To which we say: Good! That coal needs to stay in the ground.

The Court’s dis­missal of Wyoming and Mon­tana’s legal cru­sade for coal comes on the same day as the hottest tem­per­a­tures ever record­ed in the recent his­to­ry of the Pacif­ic North­west. It should be abun­dant­ly, painful­ly clear to every­one that the Earth has a fever. The com­mon home we all share is in trou­ble. Cli­mate dam­age is caus­ing extreme weath­er and sea lev­el rise, among oth­er consequences.

Repub­li­can politi­cians in Mon­tana and Wyoming seem not to care.

As far as they’re con­cerned, coal is just good busi­ness, and they ought to be able to extract every last nugget of the stuff for burn­ing here or else­where, regard­less of the harm it would cause to the plan­et and to humanity.

Though the Mil­len­ni­um Bulk Ter­mi­nal project is not going to be mov­ing for­ward, plen­ty of coal from Wyoming and Mon­tana is nev­er­the­less still being export­ed through exist­ing facil­i­ties at Wash­ing­ton ports — which is a problem.

“Plain­tiffs’ claims are mer­it­less. Their case is premised on the idea that Wash­ing­ton is ‘blockad­ing’ their coal, pre­vent­ing them from ship­ping their goods to for­eign mar­kets. In real­i­ty, mil­lions of tons of coal from Mon­tana and Wyoming pass through Wash­ing­ton each year for export, and there is unused coal export capac­i­ty at exist­ing west coast ports,” AG Bob Fer­gu­son and Solic­i­tor Gen­er­al Noah Pur­cell wrote in a reply brief sub­mit­ted by the State of Wash­ing­ton.

“The per­mit denial at issue here was based on valid envi­ron­men­tal con­cerns specif­i­cal­ly autho­rized by fed­er­al law, not dis­crim­i­na­to­ry motives.”

“Ulti­mate­ly, this case is not a dis­pute between States. It is about the denial of one per­mit appli­ca­tion sub­mit­ted by one pri­vate com­pa­ny. That dis­pute can be resolved in the lit­i­ga­tion that already is pro­ceed­ing. Noth­ing about this case mer­its the exer­cise of this Court’s orig­i­nal juris­dic­tion,” Fer­gu­son and Pur­cell added.

The Biden admin­is­tra­tion sided with Wash­ing­ton State in urg­ing the Court not to hear the case, tak­ing the posi­tion that there was no con­tro­ver­sy to be resolved.

Attor­neys for the Depart­ment of Jus­tice char­ac­ter­ized the case this way:

“Mon­tana and Wyoming seek leave to file a bill of com­plaint chal­leng­ing Washington’s denial of Millennium’s appli­ca­tion for a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion under Sec­tion 401 of the Clean Water Act — a cer­ti­fi­ca­tion that would have been a pre­req­ui­site to build­ing a new coal export ter­minal on the Colum­bia Riv­er in Washington.”

“Regard­less of whether that denial was unlaw­ful, how­ev­er, Millennium will not be build­ing its pro­posed ter­mi­nal. After Mon­tana and Wyoming sought leave to file their bill of com­plaint in this Court, Mil­len­ni­um filed for bankrupt­cy and divest­ed itself of any inter­est in the prop­er­ty in ques­tion. Accord­ing­ly, this suit would not redress Montana and Wyoming’s assert­ed injury from the denial of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion under Sec­tion 401. Because no Arti­cle III case or con­tro­ver­sy exists, the motion for leave to file a bill of com­plaint should be denied.”

Wyoming recent­ly cre­at­ed a $1 mil­lion plus pro-coal legal fund for the pur­pos­es of advanc­ing law­suits like the one the Supreme Court dis­missed today.

The case’s demise isn’t going over well in Cheyenne or Helena.

Wyoming Gov­er­nor Mark Gor­don called it “extreme­ly frustrating.”

Mean­while, Wash­ing­ton’s elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives are hap­py to no longer be defen­dants in an anti-cli­mate, right wing legal action.