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Supreme Court Sides with Environmentalists

Meadmaker

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Meadmaker
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Apr 27, 2004
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In a 6-3 opinion, the Supreme Court today sided with clean water advocates in a case involving dumping pollutants into water.

The Clean Water Act says that companies, or governments, or whoever, cannot dump pollutants into streams, lakes or oceans without a permit. On the island of Maui, a sewage treatement plant was dumping.....stuff....into wells. However, testing showed that from the wells, it went into groundwater and ultimately ended up in the ocean. They didn't have a permit to dump in the ocean.

The Trump administration sided with the polluters saying that it was ok to pump stuff into the ground. The environmentalists said that if it went into the groundwater, and from there into the ocean, that's really no different than dumping it directly into the ocean. The court, in a 6-3 decision agreed with the environmentalists. Roberts and Kavanaugh joined the four Democratically appointed justices.

It is often said that Kavanaugh is a Trump lapdog and will side with him every time, but the record shows otherwise. Once more, he shows that he has at least a little bit of an independent streak. He's no Bill Kennedy, but he also isn't Clarence Thomas, for which we can all be grateful.

(Just in case there's any doubt, I think the majority opinion is pretty much a no brainer. It's rather obvious the intent of the law was to keep pollutants out of waterways. The fact that it goes through groundwater first is hardly a good reason for allowing pollution.)

Here's a link to a CNN story on the opinion.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/23/supreme-court-rejects-trump-backed-loophole-in-clean-water-case.html
 
theprestige said:
Did they have a permit to dump in the wells?
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Presumably, but it would be a state issue. The Supreme Court was covering the Clean Water Act and federal law.

I think that only applies to "navigable waterways". I said "streams", but I think they have to be navigable streams. I don't know the exact definition of "navigable". Of course, any stream that isn't navigable will end up in the ocean, possibly passing into some other navigable waterway before it does, so it would effectively ban all dumping without a permit.
 
Meadmaker said:
It is often said that Kavanaugh is a Trump lapdog and will side with him every time, but the record shows otherwise. Once more, he shows that he has at least a little bit of an independent streak. He's no Bill Kennedy, but he also isn't Clarence Thomas, for which we can all be grateful.
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Yes, he occasionally sides with judges on the left.

But, when there are major political issues (such as on gerrymandering, or immigration, or the census question) he seems to side with the Republicans.

From Time Magazine
Leo and his allies predict that Kavanaugh will evolve to be more like Alito, who is ideologically to the right of Roberts, less willing to compromise or inclined toward consensus. There is some data to support this conclusion. According to Feldman, Kavanaugh sided with Alito 91% of the time in his first-term.

So assuming that he might actually be a "swing vote" based on a case like this might be premature.

(Heck, the cynic in me says that he may just be voting that way to try to salvage his reputation... in a 'safe' vote that the right-wing was going to lose anyways, make yourself look like you might be reasonable. Call him the Susan Collins of the Supreme Court.)
 
The Trump administration sided with the polluters saying that it was ok to pump stuff into the ground.
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That's about as surprising as ticks on a deer.

I agree that it tells us A LOT about the 3 dissenting judges. And it ain't good.
 
This is your reminder that heuristics indicate Kavanaugh is probably a better supreme Court Justice than Sotomayor.
 
Segnosaur said:
Yes, he occasionally sides with judges on the left.

But, when there are major political issues (such as on gerrymandering, or immigration, or the census question) he seems to side with the Republicans.

From Time Magazine
Leo and his allies predict that Kavanaugh will evolve to be more like Alito, who is ideologically to the right of Roberts, less willing to compromise or inclined toward consensus. There is some data to support this conclusion. According to Feldman, Kavanaugh sided with Alito 91% of the time in his first-term.

So assuming that he might actually be a "swing vote" based on a case like this might be premature.

(Heck, the cynic in me says that he may just be voting that way to try to salvage his reputation... in a 'safe' vote that the right-wing was going to lose anyways, make yourself look like you might be reasonable. Call him the Susan Collins of the Supreme Court.)
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I like to think (naively maybe) the justices side with how they interpret the law not with any particular party.
 
eeyore1954 said:
I like to think (naively maybe) the justices side with how they interpret the law not with any particular party.
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That would be ideal, but the fact that there are so many justices that are considered reliably conservative or reliably liberal suggests that doesn't really happen often. The fact that we occasionally have people split with their faction is a welcome sign that maybe at least there's a little bit of independent thought.
 
Segnosaur said:
So assuming that he might actually be a "swing vote" based on a case like this might be premature.
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I don't think that's the point. Yes, he's a conservative jurist. Presidents are entitled to appoint jurists with ideological views. The point is that he's not a lapdog. He won't side with Trump just because it's Trump.

It's also silly to think that the Trump administration will always take a conservative position on court cases. Trump is a populist, not a conservative.
 
I never heard anybody say he'd be a 100% predictable lapdog on all cases. What people were saying was that he was there to protect Trump when he acts like a dictator because he sees the Presidency as pretty much a dictatorship anyway. That's a narrower, more specific issue which doesn't include anything environmental anywhere in it.
 
Delvo said:
I never heard anybody say he'd be a 100% predictable lapdog on all cases. What people were saying was that he was there to protect Trump when he acts like a dictator because he sees the Presidency as pretty much a dictatorship anyway. That's a narrower, more specific issue which doesn't include anything environmental anywhere in it.
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Exactly this.
 
Delvo said:
I never heard anybody say he'd be a 100% predictable lapdog on all cases. What people were saying was that he was there to protect Trump when he acts like a dictator because he sees the Presidency as pretty much a dictatorship anyway. That's a narrower, more specific issue which doesn't include anything environmental anywhere in it.
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Hmmm.....not sure I can go along with that assessment. Let me do some fishing for some evidence.


I would like to ask anyone what they think the worst decision of the Kavanaugh era has been. Where can we find evidence that the replacement of Kennedy with Kavanaugh has caused the Supreme Court to go to Hell in a handbasket?

I'll say my biases in advance. My own take on the Supreme Court is that they ought to follow what the law actually is, as opposed to what they think the law ought to be. I think "judicial activisim" is a real thing, found on the left and on the right, and it is not a good thing. So, if a ruling upheld a law that was very harmful, I would call it a good ruling unless there were an obvious constitutional reason why the law was not simply bad, but also unconstitutional. I rarely disagreed with Justice Kennedy, but on those rare occasions I did disagree, I usually was with the conservatives.

So, for people who think Kavanaugh will be the fifth vote for some really awful rulings, I would like to know if we have already seen that in his record, so I can see if I agree or disagree with the opinions that others find awful.
 
Delvo said:
I never heard anybody say he'd be a 100% predictable lapdog on all cases. What people were saying was that he was there to protect Trump when he acts like a dictator because he sees the Presidency as pretty much a dictatorship anyway. That's a narrower, more specific issue which doesn't include anything environmental anywhere in it.
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I think you must be confused about what a dictatorship is. Actual dictators get to dictate environmental policy too, it isn't somehow immune to their whims.
 
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