circuit breaker
Nevermind the bollocks, here's the enviro concerns:
What concerns enviros most are not the decisions Alito has made on environmental matters directly, but those revealing a broader judicial philosophy that could be invoked in future environmental lawsuits. "What's most important is what a justice believes on constitutional grounds," said Sugameli.
Take, for instance, Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, in which Alito argued that the 11th Amendment prohibits state employees from suing a state government in federal court for damages under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. (The Supreme Court later ruled that employees could sue under a related provision of the act.) "It's more evidence that Alito may not believe the Constitution adequately empowers Congress to allow average Americans to go to court, protect their rights, and ensure that environmental and other laws are enforced," said Sugameli.
The most troubling skeleton in Alito's judicial closet, according to Sierra Club senior attorney David Bookbinder, is the dissent he wrote in U.S. v. Rybar in 1996. Alito advocated striking down a federal law banning possession of machine guns on the grounds that, in some instances, it exceeds congressional power under the Constitution's Commerce Clause. He argued that, as in-state machine-gun possession is not interstate economic activity, such authority should be conferred to state governments alone. This kind of reasoning strikes fear in the hearts of enviros, as the Commerce Clause is the basis for nearly every major federal environmental law in the U.S.
"If he is willing to find that Congress doesn't have that sort of authority over possession of machine guns, it makes you very concerned he will apply the same logic to Congress's authority over interstate pollutants," said Bookbinder.
This is particularly concerning to enviros given that three weeks ago, the Supreme Court decided to review Rapanos v. United States and Carabell v. Army Corps of Engineers, two landmark cases that challenge the reach of the Clean Water Act and call into question state-level versus federal authority to protect the environment. "The stakes are enormous," said Kendall. "If the federal government loses these cases, millions of acres of waters and wetlands could be left unprotected. And an adverse ruling would also call into question a much broader array of environmental safeguards."
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