After a busy first six months on the Supreme Court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday wrote her first majority opinion in a case involving the Environmental Protection Agency and Freedom of Information Act requirements.

Barrett’s opinion, which was joined by the court’s five other conservative members and Justice Elena Kagan, focused on a dispute over the EPA and other environmental agencies and the Sierra Club, an environmental organization seeking to view the agency’s consultations with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The court found that the government agencies were protected from FOIA inquires because of the “deliberative process privilege,” meaning that draft documents can be withheld from public view.

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“Because the decision-makers neither approved the drafts nor sent them to the EPA, they are best described not as draft biological opinions but as drafts of draft biological opinions,” Barrett wrote of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s consultations with the EPA.

The Sierra Club, before reaching the high court, was attempting to obtain documents related to an EPA rule that would protect fish from dying in cooling water tanks. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals previously ruled in favor of the Sierra Club.

Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, with Breyer writing that in his view, the “key difference between a Draft Biological Opinion and a Draft of a Draft Biological Opinion” is that the former is, in a sense, a “final” document.

Barrett, since her confirmation to the Supreme Court last October, has played an instrumental role in swinging decisions in the court’s so-called shadow docket. In her first notable action, Barrett was the decisive vote in allowing New York churches and synagogues to ignore Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic gathering restrictions.

Barrett’s vote in that case opened the door for the court to give favorable decisions to churches in New Jersey, Colorado, and California, among other states.

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Barrett also surprised many court watchers in January when she joined the liberal wing of the court to stop an Alabama death row inmate from being executed without his pastor present.

Supreme Court justices typically handle fairly minor cases for their first majority opinions. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a unanimous opinion on the Federal Arbitration Act. Justice Neil Gorsuch also handled a unanimous opinion for his first opinion, which addressed the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

Barrett is the first Supreme Court justice since Elena Kagan to write a first majority opinion not joined by the rest of the court.

Original Location: Barrett writes first majority opinion, in wildlife protection case