Finally, somebody is paying attention to us. That is to say, the Boston Globe has published a piece detailing Supreme Court appointee John G. Roberts’ history on environmental issues, both as a judge and as a lawyer. The article covers the extremely important Rancho Viejo v. Norton case (a.k.a. the case of the hapless toad), as well as Roberts’ efforts as a lawyer to restrict the ability of private groups to sue the government regarding changes to environmental legislation and his support of the mining industry that helped prevent an injunction against mountaintop-removal mining in West Virginia.

Rancho Viejo v. Norton, which I mentioned in an earlier post, indicates that Roberts would be inclined to limit the application of the commerce clause, the foundation of American environmental law. The Environmental Economics blog has some good additional coverage of this case, though I can’t say I agree with author Rich Woodward’s relatively optimistic conclusion that Roberts is unlikely to break precedent and scale back eight decades of broad application of the commerce clause. Mainly, I’m concerned that Roberts’ attitude as an anti-environmental advocate is much more strongly established than his history as a jurist, since he has only sat on the bench for two years. Since his conformation is virtually guaranteed, I’m sure time will tell who’s right and who’s wrong.