Hello, this is RJ Deakin, reading the Supreme Court of United States opinion syllabus in Chevron, USA versus Plackerman's Parish, Louisiana. Search Ray to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argued January twelfth, twenty twenty six, and decided April seventeenth, twenty twenty six. The Federal Officer Removal Statute USC section fourteen forty two A one authorizes removal of state court suits against federal officers or persons acting under them for or relating to any act under color of such office. This case concerns whether, for purposes of the statute, a state court environmental suit challenging Chevron's crude oil production during the Second World War is for or relating to Chevron's wartime refining of crude oil into aviation gasoline for the U.S. military. In nineteen seventy eight, Louisiana enacted the State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act, which prohibited certain uses of Louisiana's coastal zone, including oil production, without a permit. The Act exempted uses legally commenced before 1980. In 2013, Plackerman's Parish and other parishes filed forty-two state court suits against oil and gas companies under the Act. They alleged that the companies lacked permits and that some uses, although initiated before 1980, were illegally commenced and therefore not covered by the inception. An expert report filed by the parish made clear that it intended to challenge certain defendants' crude oil production during the Second World War. The report alleged that Chevron failed to use steel tanks instead of earthen pits, should not have used vertical drilling methods, and failed to equip fields with sufficient roads using canals instead. Chevron removed the suit to federal court under the federal officer removal statute, arguing that the suit related to its contractual duties to refine crude oil into Avgas for the military during the war. The district court rejected this argument, granted the parish's motion to remand to state court. The Fifth Circuit affirmed, agreeing that Chevron had acted under a federal officer officer as a military contractor. But concluding that the suit was not for or relating to these acts because Chevron's refining contract did not specify how to acquire crude oil. Judge Oldham dissented, reasoning that crude oil was indispensable to Avgas, such that its production necessarily related to Chevron's performance of its federal Avgas refining duties. Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relation oh, the Supreme Court held. The decision below is vacated and remanded. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion. Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged crude oil production and the performance of its federal Avgas refining duties, not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one, and has therefore satisfied the relating to requirement of the federal officer removal statute. The phrase relating to sweeps broadly, meaning to stand in some relation, to have bearing or concern, to pertain, refer, to bring into association with or connection with. That's uh Ingersoll Rand versus McClendon, even if it was not specifically designed to affect it. And even without a strict causal relationship, that's a site from Ford Motor Corporation versus Montana 8th Judicial District Court. Accordingly, a removing defendant need not show that his federal duties specifically required or strictly cause the challenge conduct. The ordinary meaning of relating to, however, is not so broad that it is meaningless. The ordinary meaning requires a connection that is not tenuous, remote, or peripheral. Ordinary readers would not understand the federal officer removal statute to reach all suits with any attenuated connection to federal duties. Chevron's suit relates to the performance of federal duties because Chevron has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties. This suit implicates Chevron's wartime efforts to produce and supply Avgas essential feedstock. So it is closely connected to Chevron's wartime Avgas refining for the military. Much of the crude oil that Chevron produced in Plackamans parish was ultimately used for its own Avgas refining, and the suit challenges Chevron's actions that allowed it to increase its production of crude oil during wartime. The parish's report alleged that Chevron's use of the coastal zone had been illegally commenced because of its reliance on vertical drilling methods, canals, and earthen pits. But using vertical drilling methods maximized crude oil production. Using canals saved time and materials, resulting in more timely oil production. And using earthen pits compile uh complied with the government's directive to preserve steel. The government emphasized the importance of increasing Chevron's crude oil production to support avgas refining as part of the war effort, and it identified the oil field at issue as critical to the war program because it produced a preferential kind of crude oil for refining avgas. In this all hands-on-deck wartime context, Chevron needed to produce more crude oil as quickly as possible to facilitate more Avgas refining, including its own. The court disagrees with the Fifth Circuit's two main reasons for ruling to the contrary. First, the Fifth Circuit reasoned that Chevron's refining contract did not specify how to obtain or produce crude oil, so Chevron's crude oil production was unrelated to the performance of its federal refining duties. But the ordinary meaning of relating to does not require the defendant to show that his federal duties specifically invited his challenged conduct. Chevron's contract did not have to expressly direct or invite Chevron's crude oil production for that conduct to relate to its Avgas refining. Second, the Fifth Circuit reasoned that the government's allocation of crude oil to refineries served any relation between producing and refining. But an act can relate to its consequences even when the causal chain includes actions by intermediaries. See moralis there. Producing crude oil relates to refining it into Avgas, even if the government acted as an intermediary allocating the crude oil to refineries. The court also disagrees with Louisiana's argument that the removal statute requires that the defendant was acting under a federal officer in taking the specific actions challenged in the suit. This theory is not consistent with the statutory text, which permits removal of suits against officers or their agents for acts that were not done under color of their offices, so long as the suits relate to such acts. Louisiana's interpretation would leave the relating to requirement with little, if any, independent function, impermissibly conflating the acting under and for or relating to elements of the federal officer removal test. The decision below is vacated and remanded. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett joined. Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Alito took no part in the decision of the case. Thanks for listening. If you want to uh reach out, you can get me at Rhodes Scholar80 at gmail.com. That's R-O-A-D-S, like the truck drive in Rhodes, and the number 8080 at gmail.com. Thanks.