Justice Clarence Thomas, writing for a seven-justice majority, said Chevron "has plausibly alleged a close relationship between its challenged conduct and the performance of its federal duties—not a tenuous, remote, or peripheral one." The Court remanded for further proceedings, leaving the other federal officer removal requirements unresolved.
The case arose from 42 suits filed in 2013 by Plaquemines Parish and other Louisiana parishes against oil and gas companies under the State and Local Coastal Resources Management Act, a 1978 law whose permitting program took effect in 1980 and exempted uses "legally commenced" before that date. The parish alleged that Chevron's drilling at the Delta Duck Club field, begun during the war, was illegally commenced because of its use of vertical-drilling methods, canals and earthen pits, and therefore fell outside the exemption.
Chevron removed the suit under 28 U.S.C. §1442(a)(1), which authorizes removal of state suits against federal officers or persons "acting under" them "for or relating to any act under color of such office." Chevron argued the suit related to a wartime contract its predecessor, the Texas Company, had entered with the federal government, through the Defense Supplies Corporation, to refine crude oil into high-octane aviation gasoline, or "avgas," at its Texas refinery. The Petroleum Administration for War oversaw the oil industry and assisted in arranging avgas refining contracts.
Thomas wrote that 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," quoting Morales v. Trans World Airlines. He added that the phrase "is not 'so broad that it is meaningless,'" and requires a connection that is not "tenuous, remote, or peripheral."
The Court rejected the Fifth Circuit's reasoning that Chevron's refining contract did not specify how to obtain or produce crude oil. "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," Thomas wrote. The Court also rejected the appeals court's view that the Petroleum Administration for War's allocation of crude oil to refineries severed the relationship between production and refining.
Thomas pointed to record evidence that the Petroleum Administration for War identified the Delta Duck Club field as a "Critical Fiel[d] Essential 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," he wrote.
The Court also rejected Louisiana's alternative argument that the statute requires a defendant to have been "acting under" a federal officer when taking the specific actions challenged. That reading, Thomas wrote, would "leave the 'relating to' requirement with little, if any, independent function."
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson concurred only in the judgment, writing separately to disagree with the majority's reading of the 2011 amendment that added "or relating to" to the statute. "In my view, the statute demands more," she wrote, contending that the provision still "requires a causal nexus between the targeted conduct and the federal duties."
Jackson said the "or relating to" language was a "conforming amendment" intended to clarify that presuit discovery proceedings could be removed, not to loosen the causal-nexus test established in Willingham v. Morgan. She agreed Chevron met that test because it "produced crude oil, at least in part, to meet the demands of its federal contracts."
Justice Samuel Alito took no part in the decision. The case was argued January 12, 2026.