The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday that it won’t allow Wyoming and Montana to sue Washington state for denying a key permit to build a coal export dock that would have sent coal to Asia. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted in the minority in the ruling against letting the two states sue the third in a case that would have gone directly before the high court. The two major coal mining states have sought to boost exports to prop up an industry in decline for a decade as U.S. utilities switch to gas-fired power and renewable energy. The Washington state Department of Ecology in 2017 denied a permit for the export dock, saying the facility on the Columbia River would cause “irreparable and unavoidable” environmental harm. Denying the permit violated the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against trade protectionism between states, the coal states argued […]