SUPREME COURT CALLS: Are the justices standing in the way of pro-environmental cases?
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Environmental interests were trounced in the 2009 Supreme Court term that ends Monday.
In five high-profile cases, the justices overturned decisions that favored environmentalists. They ruled in favor of the Navy in a case pitting national security concerns against the welfare of marine mammals; limited the scope of liability for a Superfund cleanup; and reversed a decision that held no cost-benefit test could be used to determine the best technology for withdrawing water from rivers to cool power-plant turbines.
In addition, the court held that five conservation groups lacked standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations and found that the Army Corps of Engineers, not U.S. EPA, has permitting authority over mining-waste discharges under the Clean Water Act.
"This term's environmental decisions, taken as a whole, convey a message of extreme hostility to the goals and methods of environmental law," said John Echeverria, director of the Georgetown University Law Center's Environmental Law and Policy Institute. "Based both on the specific cases the court selected for review, and the court's actual decisions in the cases, the overall effect of the rulings has been to weaken environmental protections across the board."
Supreme Court watchers and the attorneys representing parties involved in these cases offered varying theories about why the notoriously tight-lipped court ruled a certain way and unanimously pointed to a perceived interest among the justices in environmental-themed cases.
"All we really know for sure is that there seem to be at least four justices who are willing to reach out and examine environmental cases with consistency," said Jay Austin, who heads the Environmental Law Institute's program monitoring Supreme Court environmental litigation. "Of course it's interesting to note that these are almost uniformly the cases that they end up opposing."
Echeverria attributed the 100 percent reversal rate on environmental-themed decisions this term to "serious concern on the part of the court's conservative majority about potential undue regulatory burdens on business."
That would be an acceptable rationale for the Pacific Legal Foundation's Steven Geoffrey Gieseler, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the government and private parties in the Navy sonar and power plant cases.
Gieseler welcomed the court's majority decisions, which he described as "narrow and pragmatic."
"All in all, and not just limited to environmental cases, the court this year seemed much more interested in consensus building, and to that end, the major decisions were much more narrow in scope," he said. "What could be described as real ideological 'home runs' on some of these issues were avoided in favor of more narrow and pragmatic rulings on the merits of each case."
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFinally an intelligent decision from the supreme court. But I doubt if this is any indication to what direction the court is heading.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the court exhibits an extreme hostility towards eco-religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Court must not let the Constitution get in the way of environmental ideologies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStrange, the Supreme Court decides cases based on law rather then the 9th district way of making law based on case decisions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAt least one branch of our government has retained some sanity and common sense! Good job boys ....... and girl.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCompletely Off Topic
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHeading over to the stretching area, the Score composed by Jeremy Soule, First Light,
'father's' emotional intelligence into my well-being. Fathering fair composure, Soule's Scores diligently bombard each nonvacant compile of assurance I honor as sanction of truth. Auriel's Ascension, a score of silent faith similar in depth as Gorecki's Symphony #3 OP 36, awakens me as a sure bound partner.
The Supreme Court's function is to improve uniformity across state and national laws, uphold the Constitution and in very limited ways make new law.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisQuestions of science should be resolved in the lower courts. Procedure and definition, not facts are their primary domain. The Supreme Court is enforcing the "Rule of Law" nature of our government. Decisions are rightly made on the narrowest of grounds to avoid grand sweeping changes that are later reversed. The Court's role is not disrupting, but stability.
Congress is the place to work for change. Don't expect or even desire the Court to lead. Please read Justice O'Connor's book for more insight to the Supreme Court.
I saw Kennedy and O'Connor giving a joint interview the other day on TV. Kennedy was pontificating how if anyone thinks being a Republican or a Democrat has anything to do with Supreme Court decisions, they don't know how the court works.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRepublicans are hostile to anything having to do with cleaning up earth's environment. Many of them consider Global Warming to be a cultish fad, used by people who want to bring down the United States.
Five Republicans on the Supreme Court - and five Justices who can be depended upon to look with hostility on anything brought before it by an environmental group.
So much for judicial independence.