We pointed out, in a lengthy factual appendix, that nearly all of the Court's factual assumptions were simply wrong. The Ninth Circuit denied the Petition for Rehearing without opinion. The Pacific Northwest Generating Cooperative petitioned for the Supreme Court review. The DSIs, preferring to keep their powder dry for another fight, did not. The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the petition for review, giving no reasons, as is customary.
Courts are still somewhat reluctant to admit to second-guessing administrative decisions.
There are too many Supreme Court cases telling them not to do this. So they issue opinions that tell agencies what to do, and disguising the real message in complaints about the agency's explanation of what it did. The media do not get tangled up in the niceties of judicial review of agency action. They are supposed to provide directives about how those agencies must conform themselves to the law established by the Legislative Branch. Their whole institutional legitimacy depends on the idea that they are interpreting the law, not running amok as self-appointed czars of natural resource development.