Although none of the five decisions is a landmark ruling, all raised bread-and-butter environmental issues, some with potentially huge implications for the ability of environmentalists and the government to enforce the nation's major environmental laws.
The justices ruled:
• 6-3 for electric utilities that argued that the Clean Water Act authorizes the use of cost-benefit analysis in regulating water cooling intake structures (Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper).
• 6-3 for a gold mine operator that argued that the Army Corps of Engineers had the authority to issue permits for dumping dredge or fill dirt into an Alaskan lake without satisfying more stringent pollution limits for permits issued by the Environmental Protection Agency (Coeur Alaska v. Southeast Alaska Conservation).
• 8-1 that the federal Superfund law does not mandate joint and several liability in every cost-recovery case but permits apportionment, and narrowing so-called "arranger liability" of companies that sold the product that ultimately polluted the site (Burlington Northern Railway/Shell Oil Co. v. U.S.).
• 6-3 to lift an injunction requiring the Navy to conduct an environmental impact statement and limiting its use of sonar when marine mammal activity is present (Winter v. NRDC).
• 5-4 that environmental organizations lacked standing to challenge U.S. Forest Service regulations exempting the service from notice, comment and appeal processes for fire-rehabilitation and salvage-timber sales (Summers v. Earth Island Institute).
"None of the cases individually is a blockbuster, but collectively the Court is chipping away at the very foundations of environmental law in this country," said Douglas Kendall, president of the Constitutional Accountability Center. John Echeverria of Vermont Law School said the Court's concern that industry is overburdened by environmental regulations is driving its decisions.
(National Law Journal)
Environmental causes are the biggest part of cancer, which means that health care costs will continue to go up from cancer. Should an individual have to burden the cost of a society-wide decision to continue adding cancer causing agents to our environment? Or are we all just giving up because of climate change? And what is up with Obama and these signing statements?
