Law Prof Says 08-09 ‘Worst Term Ever’ for Environmental Proponents
Environmental groups may not have lost all five cases before the U.S. Supreme Court last term if Justice Sandra Day O’Connor had remained on the court.
O’Connor grew up on a ranch and often voted for environmental interests, the New York Times reports. Her replacement, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., was in the majority along with the court’s four other conservative justices in the five cases decided this term. In some cases, Justice Stephen G. Breyer, a moderate on environmental issues, also joined with the conservatives, the story says. One case was decided 8-1 with only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in dissent.
Despite that record, Temple environmental law professor Amy Sinden told the Times that the five cases could have had different results if O’Connor had remained on the court. O’Connor’s departure had a powerful impact, she told the Times.
The story summarizes the five cases this way: “The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.”
Richard Lazarus, a director of the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown law school, told the Times it was “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.
