The Supreme Court has taken a brazen anti-regulatory turn. It’s our planet and health that will suffer.
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| By Clay Bennett |
With all of these hyper-dramas, we quietly
managed to harpoon some of the half-century-old cornerstones of environmental
law.
How — and why — on Earth did we do that?
Supreme Court takes aim at wetlands
At the end of May, the Supreme Court took a
major bite out of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ability to
protect wetlands under the Clean Water Act. An Idaho couple initiated the case
in 2007 when the Clean Water Act prevented them from building a home on a
property that contained wetlands.
Over the next 16 years, Sackett v. EPA became
the focal point for farmers, homebuilders, industrialists, anti-regulatory
groups and many more who saw the EPA as an out-of-control federal agency.
Before a Supreme Court re-cast by three
conservative Trump nominees, the 5-4 SCOTUS vote actually saw Trump nominee
Brett Kavanaugh side with the court’s three remaining liberal justices. But the
Sackett ruling played the same role for EPA politics that the 2022 Dobbs case
did for neutralizing Roe v. Wade in abortion rights.
In June 2022, West Virginia v. EPA was
another long-simmering case on the EPA’s ability to regulate power plants for
greenhouse gas emissions. The court’s full 6-3 conservative majority ruled in
favor of West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey and more than a dozen
of his state colleagues. The decision monkey-wrenched the Biden
administration’s ability to meet carbon reduction goals under the Paris climate
accord.
But wait, there’s more! Also, in June 2022,
a federal district court scored a win for environmental advocates by knocking
down Trump administration rules limiting Endangered Species Act enforcement.
That one, or other Endangered Species Act cases, will fall into the lap of
SCOTUS sooner rather than later.
SCOTUS anti-regulatory turn
Justice Elena Kagan has been a consistent
voice of futile outrage over the Court’s anti-regulatory turn. In a dissent to
the Sackett decision last week, she wrote that the Court’s majority had its
“thumb on the scale” of justice.
With Trump’s three relatively young
lifetime appointees, SCOTUS seems locked into a generation of anti-regulatory,
pro-business judgment. And the judicial undercard? In his single term, Trump
made 54 appeals court and 174 federal court picks, effectively tying up much of
the federal courts system before reaching the Supreme Court.
By now, surely you must be thinking it’s a
good thing that there are two other branches of government. But no. Not this
week.
Debt limit giveaway to oil and gas
As a major giveaway in the compromise to
raise the debt limit, President Biden and the congressional Democrats agreed to
“streamline” the permitting process for energy projects. That meant weakening
the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), another key law from 1970. NEPA
required an environmental impact statement for any consequential development
using federal land or funds.
Oil and gas pipeline projects would benefit
deeply and quickly, as would methane export projects and new plastics factories
stateside, with appeals and public comment periods shortened.
It was progressive Rep. Jared Huffman who
told the Washington Post, “They must think we’re really, really
stupid,” (if Republican leaders thought the Dems’ leaders would agree to this).
Then, the Democrats did agree to it.
The environment as a political pawn
I’m afraid that this illustrates just how
little clout environmental issues still have. Even as we proclaim climate
change an “existential” threat, it’s one of the first items tossed under the
bus.
It’s a far cry from the time when the high
court had its own treehugger. Justice William O. Douglas served 36 years on the
court. He once asked during a case involving a ski resort if trees should have
the same rights as humans.
Today’s court has a bizarre, mirror-image
environmental twist of its own. Justice Neil Gorsuch was the first of Trump’s
appointees. His mom, Anne Gorsuch Burford, was Ronald Reagan’s first EPA
administrator. She openly expressed contempt for the agency’s mission and was
forced out by scandal after two years.
Now her son and other Trump appointees are
taking up her cause — and it’s our planet that will suffer.
Peter Dykstra has worked on environmental issues for decades. He is based in Conyers, Ga., and is a former publisher and weekend editor at Environmental Health News and The Daily Climate. He is a contributor to Public Radio International’s Living On Earth.
