Three Dems on SCOTUS, no environmentalists

This is yet another reason why I'm not a Democrat and why "oh, but the Supreme Court" chants every four years fail to move me. SCOTUS has UNANIMOUSLY gutted the National Environmental Policy Act. 

Here's the basics:

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the court and there were no dissents. Ultimately, both liberal and conservative justices agreed with the bottom line decision.

Then the libruls trying to nuance the issue:

The court’s three liberals – Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – agreed with the outcome of the case but had different reasoning. Writing for the three, Sotomayor said that such environmental reviews conducted by federal agencies should be limited to their own expertise. The Surface Transportation Board, which conducted the review in this case, is primarily focused on transportation projects, not oil refining.

“Under NEPA, agencies must consider the environmental impacts for which their decisions would be responsible,” Sotomayor wrote. “Here, the board correctly determined it would not be responsible for the consequences of oil production upstream or downstream from the railway because it could not lawfully consider those consequences as part of the approval process.”

Uh, sure! That's Jesuitical.

So, under this standard, BLM, USFS etc should no longer be allowed to consider climate change for drilling permit leases, etc.

I first mentioned this in the 2016 election with "Notorious RBG," aka Ruth Bader Ginsberg, after her death, noting her flag-burning love / First Amendment hatred and other things. 

Actually, I mentioned it earlier that year with Breyer being a squish on a Fourth Amendment case.

I followed up a year later and noted how the Supreme Court has generally hated third parties.

Two years later, when Dems whipped out "Oh the SCOTUS" on Tony the Pony Kennedy's retirement, I noted not just Breyer but Sotomayor at times being Fourth Amendment squishes along with Ginsberg's problems etc.

A year later, Breyer (to preserve an earlier ruling by him as a precedent) and Kagan, in the Bladensberg Cross case, helped gut the First Amendment.

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The libruls, per SCOTUSblog, also declined to review a case from Aridzona that will expedite copper mining in an Apache sacred site.  Once again, think of him what you will otherwise, Justice Gorsuch continues to show full consideration for American Indian legal rights and general issues.

Has Obama found some environmentalist gonads?

I definitely want to see the fine print, but if he takes a step 1/10th as strong as, say, NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act, has been so far, this proposed executive order would be huge.

Here's how such an order would take off on NEPA's current regulations:

While some U.S. agencies already take climate change into account when assessing projects, the new guidelines would apply across-the-board to all federal reviews. Industry lobbyists say they worry that projects could be tied up in lawsuits or administrative delays. 

For example, Ambre Energy Ltd. is seeking a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to build a coal-export facility at the Port of Morrow in Oregon. Under existing rules, officials weighing approval would consider whether ships in the port would foul the water or generate air pollution locally. The Environmental Protection Agency and activist groups say that review should be broadened to account for the greenhouse gases emitted when exported coal is burned in power plants in Asia. 

But, here's where the fine print already comes in.

 Lawyers and lobbyists are now waiting for the White House’s Council on Environmental Quality to issue the long bottled-up standards for how agencies should address climate change under the National Environmental Policy Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1970.

And, that's why I think that's there will be more horsemeat than beef in this burger.

I bring to mind, say, the Consumer Finance Protection Agency. Still crafting legal standards. Ditto for other post-Great Recession Obama federal agencies on regulating banksters.

And, given the history of the Department of Interior under Obama, I'm not holding my breath too much.

That said, as the story notes, any executive order expansion of NEPA would invite citizen lawsuits just like NEPA's other protections. However, if a subsequent Republican president revokes that executive order, what happens?

Bloomberg's story says any court cases already decided would set precedent. But, the conservative activists on SCOTUS care little for precedent.

And, anti-Keystoners who, in their ongoing fight, think this would give them more ammunition? I doubt it.

And, Obama's plan to finance energy security could backfire; the funding depends on money from federal oil and gas drilling leases, and Alaska's Lisa Murkowski has already explicitly tied it to ANWR being opened for drilling.