Sonia Sotomayor on the Environment and Energy
The "meltdown" that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) mentioned as the only possibility to derail Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court never materialized during last week’s hearing, and with approval a near certainty, a lot of observers are taking a closer look at what Justice Sotomayor might mean to the Court’s environmental jurisprudence.
Jennifer Koons published a wrap-up of the environmental scuttlebutt from the hearings on Friday at Greenwire. The piece touches on the key cases and questions surrounding them. The key lies in unpacking a comment made by Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) when he asked how Sotomayor felt about the Court’s 6-3 reversal of her decision in Riverkeeper v. EPA.
Writing for the 2nd Circuit in Riverkeeper, Sotomayor found for an environmental advocacy group challenging a Bush-era EPA ruling. The EPA exempted Entergy from undertaking a full-dress cost-benefit analysis to evaluate whether the measures they are using to mitigate pollution are the "best" methods available, as required by the Clean Water Act.