GroupThinkTank
Revolutionizing the world, one "I agree" at a time
Thursday, November 30, 2006
X-Pub, 2:42 PM:
The Supremes and the Environment
Howdy all. I am moderately interested in Massachusetts v. The EPA. The gist of the case is that the EPA was getting geared up to regulate CO2 emissions, then Bush came around and the EPA decided that:
1) The EPA does not have the right to regulate CO2 because it is not an "air pollutant" that may "reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare" (the legal requirement).
2) That even if they did have the power to regulate CO2, they wouldn't because there is still uncertainty (insert comment about uncertainty not preventing us from invading Iraq).
Slate has a Supreme Court blogger named Dahlia Lithwick whom I generally like. She wrote about what happend in the courtroom:
Slate reporting on what's going on in the courtroom.
Here's a summary:
1. John Roberts hates the environment and doesn't believe in global warming.
2. Scalia and Alito are pretty content with the argument that we can't stop global warming all by ourselves, so why even try?
3. Clarence Thomas is either mute, bored or asleep, since he hasn't said anything. Assumedly having both Alito and Scalia to vote with means that there's even less chance that he will get confused and vote liberal.
4. Stevens seems pretty ready to trust the enviromental scientists at the word
5. Souter and Bryer seem to pretty much buy into the commong sense idea that we should accept our best analysis of global warming and do what we can to prevent it.
6. Ginsburg has not said anything, but we can probably assume that she jump on the liberal bandwagon
7. And so it all comes down to Kennedy who says that the question before the court is whether global warming is real. It seems that if he can be convinced of that he will side with Massachusetts.
Some personal points:
1. Wait, shouldn't the EPA be an advocate for the environment instead of against it? In bizarro land liberal-Bush appointed the former president of E.L.F. as secretary of commerce.
2. Legal people: are Souter and Bryer differentiable? I always assume that they are both kinda boring moderate liberals, but perhaps it is simply that they are not new, black, women, outrageously rude, the swing vote or really old, so they kinda just blend in.
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Mark Dixon, 9:26 PM:
In a dignified manner
"Let the process play itself out in a dignified manner," said Ed Gillespie, a former national Republican Party chairman, speaking for the Allen campaign in front of the Virginia party headquarters. "The votes need to be accurately counted. Only at the end of that process is a winner declared."
Right. These are the guys who were so concerned about "that process" that they went running to the Supremes to stop the vote count in Florida in '00.
