2 • The Southwest Portland Post
Dear EarthTalk: If Neil Gorsuch
is confirmed to fill the vacant seat
on the Supreme Court, what will be
the implications for environmental
and climate policy?
– Jim Metcalf, Newark, Delaware
Environmental leaders aren’t
particularly jazzed about Neil
G o r s u c h a s D o n a l d Tr u m p ’ s
nominee to fill the vacancy left on
the U.S. Supreme Court following
the death of Justice Antonin Scalia
in February 2016.
For starters, the name Gorsuch
brings back bad memories of
the 1980s when Anne Gorsuch
(Neil’s mother) slashed federal
environmental funding by 22 percent
as head of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency under President
Ronald Reagan.
Greens at the time accused her
of placating polluters and trying to
dismantle the very agency she was
hired to run. And it’s deja vu all over
again at the EPA with Scott Pruitt
now at the helm.
But it would be unfair to judge
FEATURES
a son based on his mother ’s
doings some four decades ago.
Nevertheless, environmentalists
aren’t finding much to like from Neil
Gorsuch either.
According to Billy Corriher of
the Center for American Progress,
Judge Gorsuch made his way
onto candidate Trump’s radar as a
potential Supreme Court nominee
in August 2016.
At that time Gorsuch wrote a
controversial manifesto arguing that
it should be easier for corporations
and individuals suing federal
agencies to have courts strike down
regulations and overrule decisions
by experts at agencies like the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Gorsuch contends that the
judiciary should be able to overrule
how federal agency experts
interpret how a given law should
be implemented.
In the case of global warming,
the Obama EPA interpreted carbon
dioxide as a harmful pollutant worth
regulating under the Clean Air Act
based on the recommendations of
the very agency experts Gorsuch
would potentially seek to overrule.
Like Trump’s cabinet picks,
Gorsuch favors the shrinking
of federal bureaucracy and an
increased reliance on the states to
handle their own problems.
This antipathy toward federal
regulations is another reason
Gorsuch could be a disaster for the
climate in case he casts the deciding
vote on the Supreme Court against
implementing the Clean Power
Plan, an Obama-era effort to ratchet
down carbon emissions from the
utility sector by moving away from
coal.
April 2017
Environmentalists worry that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will be
dismissive of advocacy groups and could cast the deciding vote against implementing
the Clean Power Plan. (Photo by Joe Ravi, CC)
Without the Clean Power Plan—
currently cooling its heels in judicial
review and likely headed for the
Supreme Court later this year—
there’s little hope of the U.S. meeting
its Paris climate accord emissions
reduction commitments.
Another concern is Gorsuch’s
historically dismissive posture
toward the standing of public
interest groups as plaintiffs (defined
as their right to file suit given direct
injury or harm).
According to EnviroNews,
Gorsuch dismissed a 2015 case
brought by a hunters and anglers
group against the Forest Service for
allowing motorcycles to access trails
in Colorado’s San Juan National
Forest due to lack of direct harm.
Likewise, he barred three leading
environmental groups from joining
a 2013 suit regarding where off-
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road vehicles could travel in New
Mexico’s Santa Fe National Forest.
Greens, still hopeful that the
judiciary can be the last check on the
conservative-dominated legislative
and executive branches, are crossing
their fingers that Democrats can
block Gorsuch and send the Trump
administration back to the drawing
board for someone more to their
liking.
Contacts: Center for American
Progress, www.americanprogress.
org; Clean Power Plan, www.
epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/clean-
power-plan-existing-power-plants;
EnviroNews, www.environews.tv.
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