This is a guest post by Dan Mohr, a 3L at Notre Dame Law School, and research assistant to D.C. Circuit Reviewer Haley Proctor:

There were three administrative-law decisions from the D.C. Circuit this week. Oral arguments for one of the cases, Michigan v. Department of Energy, was covered on this blog back in May by Professor Proctor. You can read it here.

Consumers Energy Company spent years developing a plan to retire its aging coal-fired powerplant, Campbell, and “replace it with a mix of expanded and new electricity-generation sources.” Both Michigan and the fifteen-state regional transmission organization Michigan participates in approved the plan. Just before the planned decommissioning date in May 2025, however, DOE stepped in and commanded the plant to continue operating, citing authority under the Federal Power Act. Section 202(c) of the act empowers DOE to command electrical facilities “when the Secretary determines that ‘an emergency exists’ due to ‘a sudden increase in the demand for electric energy, or a shortage of electric energy or of facilities for the generation or transmission of electric energy, [etc.].’” DOE’s justification for the order repeated the statute’s conditions almost verbatim. Because section 202(c) orders may last only 90 days, DOE has successively issued new orders to keep the plant operating ever since. In Michigan v. Department of Energy, the state of Michigan petitioned for review of DOE’s original order under the APA, claiming it was in excess of statutory authority.

The Court vacated DOE’s order in an opinion by Judge Pillard (joined by Chief Judge Srinivasan and Judge Wilkins). The Court draws on text and structure interpreted “against the backdrop of states’ exclusive regulatory power over the generation of electricity” to find that an “emergency” in Section 202(c) is “an electricity shortage that is or will in the future be acute and is not being timely addressed by planning for resource adequacy by the state, its utilities, or an [regional transmission organization].” Although the Federal Power Act grants the federal government authority over the interstate transmission of electricity, the act also “maintains a zone of exclusive state jurisdiction” over each State’s in-state electrical generation facilities. Therefore, states “are largely responsible for meeting the core policy goal of achieving ‘resource adequacy.’” The Court used several pages of its opinion to describe the various ways states carefully regulate their energy needs, the details of which I’ll leave to the interested reader. Although DOE had argued there were “unacceptable reliability risks in the near-term” requiring federal intervention, the Court ultimately found that the degree of risk at issue was well within the range to be handled at the state level.

Although the order at issue has been expired for more than a year, the Court did not address mootness—the parties had agreed that it was “capable of repetition yet evading review.” The orders’ expiration did factor into the Court’s decision whether to vacate, however: the Court concluded that a set-aside would not be disruptive because the order had already expired.

DOE’s latest 90-day order to keep Campbell operating was on Aug. 14, 2026 (Order No. 202-26-39). As of writing, I do not yet see a case docketed for review of this latest order. Regardless, any subsequent DOE order will have a high bar to clear under this court’s reasoning. Not only will DOE have to find “a risk of substantial harm from inadequate electricity supply that calls for immediate action by DOE” but also one unfit to be addressed “by the states.”

John Doe v. SEC is a battle-of-the-statutory-interpretations case—not as entertaining as Yates, but still can lead to some well-intentioned disagreements as exemplified by the divided panel. Under the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress created a bounty system to award whistleblowers that “voluntarily provided original information to the [Securities and Exchange] Commission that led to the successful enforcement of the covered judicial or administrative action.” Plaintiff John Doe suspected his former employer was involved in illicit activity. Doe told a journalist, who shared the information with DOJ. DOJ shared the information with SEC, which opened an investigation. Despite receiving advice to file a whistleblower submission directly with SEC, Doe failed to do so for more than a year. By the time Doe did file an official tip, SEC’s investigation was well-advanced, and Doe’s proffered information was useless. The Commission refused to grant Doe an award because his “submission neither led the SEC to open its investigation . . . nor otherwise contributed to that successful enforcement action.” Doe sought review by the D.C. Circuit.

In a majority opinion by Judge Pan (joined by Judge Childs), the Court denied his petition to review the Commission’s determination. The case turns on whether the whistleblower’s act of submission itself must have “led to” a successful enforcement action, or whether only the “original information” provided by the whistleblower must have “led to” a successful enforcement action. (Even SEC waffled in its position over the course of the saga.) The majority relied on the “plain meaning of the statutory text, as well as [] the statute’s context, history, and purpose” to hold that “a whistleblower must provide original information to the SEC, and that information must be instrumental in a successful enforcement action. Because Doe’s belated submission did not assist the SEC, he is not entitled to a whistleblower award.” The majority acknowledged that the purpose of the whistleblower program is to “motivate people who know of securities law violations to tell the SEC.” Judge Henderson, in dissent, remarked, “the majority makes too much of ‘statutory purpose.’” In her own textual analysis, she looked to the “last-antecedent canon” to conclude that the “original information,” and not its provision, must have “led to the successful enforcement of the . . . action.”

And finally, Congress tightly regulates the disclosure by IRS of taxpayer returns to other federal agencies. Under 26 U.S.C. § 6103, sharing is effectively limited to specific criminal enforcement proceedings. To request a return from IRS, an agency head must submit a written request to the Secretary of the Treasury, specifying “the name and address of the taxpayer” and “the specific reason or reasons why such disclosure is, or may be, relevant to such proceeding or investigation.” In 2025, IRS entered into a memorandum of understanding with DHS for a Data-Sharing Procedure related to ICE enforcement of 8 U.S.C. § 1253(a)(1), a statute that criminalizes remaining in the United States in violation of a removal order. Under the Procedure, ICE would submit the taxpayer information required by section 6103 to IRS. If the information fields submitted by ICE were not empty, and the Tax Identification Number matched an IRS taxpayer on file, IRS would transmit the taxpayer’s most recent address information back to ICE, without verifying the other information provided. In Center for Taxpayer Rights v. IRS, an organization providing tax-related outreach and clinic services to immigrants filed suit under the APA, and the district court preliminarily enjoined IRS from using the Procedure.

The Court, in an opinion by Judge Pillard (joined by Judges Millet and Wilkins), affirmed. The Court first confirmed that the Center had standing. The Center had claimed the Procedure caused potential clients to avoid the Center’s services, harming its interest in “advancing taxpayer rights” and diverting funds toward counteracting that effect. The Court here was careful to clarify that the Center was not “spend[ing] its way into standing” as in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. The Center had standing because the government action directly interfered with its “core business activities.”

On the merits, the Court cited two aspects of the Procedure that were likely unlawful. First, although section 6103 requires a request for taxpayer information made to IRS to contain the “address of the taxpayer,” IRS provided taxpayer records in response to requests without any address at all, other than some five- or nine-digit number in the zip code field. IRS responded to requests that listed a taxpayer’s address as “‘Unknown Address,’ ‘Failed to Provide,’ or ‘NA NA.’” Second, section 6103 also requires the Secretary of the Treasury to transmit taxpayer returns only to the officer “personally and directly engaged in the criminal proceeding or criminal investigation.” The Procedure’s methodology, however, provided data so long as the requesting officer field was “not [] empty.” In the summer of 2025, ICE submitted requests (using the Procedure) for the records of 1.28 million taxpayers, listing the same individual as the point of contact on each request. IRS responded with the records of more than 47,000 taxpayers. “The district court found it facially implausible” that one individual was “‘personally and directly engaged in’ approximately 47,000 criminal matters.” The Court therefore concluded that the “Procedure thus likely caused IRS to violate section 6103(i)(2)(A) [by providing taxpayer information to unqualified officials] and systematically will cause IRS to continue to ignore the statutory requirement.”

As the case was the review of a preliminary injunction, the Court also had to decide whether the balance of equities favored the plaintiff and if the preliminary injunction was in the public interest. Their end analysis here, at least to me, feels a little merits-heavy.