Continuing my pathbreaking series on the use or non-use of definite articles accompanying certain proper nouns in Supreme Court opinions, I will note that about the only thing that I absorbed from my quick look at yesterday’s ruling in Michigan v. EPA is that Justice Scalia (author of the majority opinion), Justice Thomas (author of a concurring opinion), and Justice Kagan (author of the dissent) all refer to the Environmental Protection Agency simply as EPA—without the definite article. E.g.: “EPA completed the study….”
That is not the usage I thought customary. A quick (but not exhaustive) check of Supreme Court opinions from the past few years suggests that the Court is deeply divided. The Chief Justice, Justice Kennedy, Justice Breyer, Justice Alito, and Justice Sotomayor have all recently referred to “the EPA.” Indeed, Justice Scalia and Justice Ginsburg both did so until 2011, but they appear to have evolved indefinitely—or, rather, non-definitely—since then.