Washington Watch: Catastrophic Kavanaugh
The verdict is in: President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court would represent a catastrophe for clean water and air.
Brett Kavanaugh’s unusually clear and extensive record as a Court of Appeals judge allowed environmental advocates to make a decisive judgment on his danger as a potential member of the Supreme Court. He would side with polluters at every opportunity.
“Unfortunately, with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, Trump has nominated an individual whose record shows he will side with the wealthy and powerful over the public interest. Kavanaugh has consistently come down on the side of Big Polluters instead of protecting clean water and clean air for all. He’s ruled to put more mercury and toxic pollutants in our air, and to make it harder to address climate change,” said national League of Conservation Voters (LCV) president Gene Karpinski. “We call on the Senate to reject this extreme nominee and ensure the next Justice will uphold our bedrock democratic institutions and environmental laws that protect our clean air, water, wildlife, lands, and health.”
Karpinski referred to the key nature of the seat that Kavanaugh would fill, that of frequent “swing vote” Anthony Kennedy: “In the past 30 years, Justice Kennedy was in the majority on all but one of the environmental cases that have come before the high court. In fact, he was the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision finding that the Clean Air Act covers the pollution fueling climate change, and his opinion in a landmark 2006 case paved the way for the EPA’s Clean Water Rule, which protects the drinking water of 1 in 3 people in this country. It is more important than ever to keep an anti-environmental extremist off of the high court.”
Multiple organizations and media analyses are calling attention to Judge Kavanaugh’s alarming environmental record. He has been particularly hostile to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority and rules.
