[Source: BuzzFeed News] In naming Brett Kavanaugh as his pick for the Supreme Court’s open seat, President Donald Trump is advancing a judge widely seen as unfriendly to environmental regulation.
The seat opened in June with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, providing an opportunity for Trump to tilt the court rightward for years to come.
Kavanaugh, 53, has served as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit for 12 years, staking out steadily right-wing positions in many decisions. On the environment, Kavanaugh is likely to be hostile to regulation of pollution, climate, and endangered animals, conservation groups say.
“He is pretty consistently anti-environment on every front,” Center for Biological Diversity senior counsel Bill Snape, a law professor at American University, told BuzzFeed News. “I call him Lord Voldemort,” said Professor Snape.
In 2016, Kavanaugh noted, “The Earth is warming. Humans are contributing.” He called a law intended to address climate change “laudable,” but also suggested that this was best left to Congress to sort out, rather than the courts.
And in past cases over the last decade, Kavanaugh has argued that climate and environmental regulation is a legal overreach — “even where science and emerging new information might be on the side of taking more environmental action,” said Joe Goffman of Harvard Law School’s Environmental Law Program.
In 2012, Kavanaugh wrote a 2–1 appeals court decision invalidating Environmental Protection Agency rules regulating air pollution that crosses state lines, arguing that the agency had overstepped its authority and siding with power companies. The Supreme Court reversed the decision, with Kennedy agreeing with the majority. (Kavanaugh was once Kennedy’s clerk.)
“He read into the statute a provision that simply wasn’t there,” Goffman said. “The second mistake he made was to second-guess the EPA on a very complicated technical decision that involved some very delicate judgment.”
Source: BuzzFeed News
July 9, 2018
