Curtis Files Amicus Brief on Behalf of Community-Based Organizations in the U.S. Territories in Supreme Court NEPA Case

Brief highlights the lack of democratic representation in Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands

Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP filed an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court of the United States in United States Department of the Air Force, et al. v. Prutehi Guåhan (No. 25-579) in July, on behalf of a coalition of community-based organizations from Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The brief was filed in support of the respondent and in partnership with the Right to Democracy Project. 

The case concerns whether the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) both apply to federal agency decisions affecting the Territories, and at what stage the public is entitled to meaningful participation. The brief argues that NEPA's requirements for early environmental study, public notice, and community engagement are especially critical in the Territories, whose more than 3.6 million residents cannot vote for the President, lack voting representation in Congress, and have long been denied full self-determination as a legacy of the Insular Cases.

The brief contends that, against this structural backdrop, NEPA's procedural protections are frequently the primary mechanism through which residents of the Territories can influence environmentally consequential federal decisions before those decisions are final. The organizations represented by the firm focus on environmental and cultural preservation and have been disproportionately affected by the U.S. military's activities in the islands.

The filing continues Curtis's longstanding commitment to the rights of the people of the Territories, building on the firm's prior work in United States v. Vaello-Madero, 596 U.S. 159 (2022), which likewise concerned the unequal treatment of Americans living in the Territories.

"The people of the Territories are governed by federal decisions they had no democratic voice in shaping — they cannot vote for the President who directs these agencies, and their representatives in Congress cannot cast a final vote on the laws that bind them," said Hermann Ferré, partner at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost and Counsel of Record on the brief. "This case is about ensuring that where the ballot box is closed to them, the door to meaningful participation is not also shut. We were proud to stand with these community organizations, just as we did in Vaello-Madero, to insist that the promise of consent of the governed cannot remain illusory for millions of Americans."

The brief was submitted by a Curtis team including Hermann Ferré, Juan O. Perla, Charles Howland, David Holmes, and Nathan Mosher, together with Neil C. Weare, Adi Martínez-Román, and Luis Fernando Martínez Torres of the Right to Democracy Project.

About Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP

Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP is a leading international law firm with a longstanding commitment to pro bono service and to advancing the rights of underrepresented communities, including the residents of the U.S. territories.