Antonin Scalia was a Supreme Court Justice, whose recent death in February could have an impact on the policies and laws that regard climate change and global warming.
Scalia didn’t keep his views on climate change and global warming private. He was not concerned about climate change. In 2009 he expressed his views on climate change by saying, “I told you before I’m not a scientist. That’s why I don’t want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth.” His conservative views on climate change were obvious.
Scalia dissented, or disagreed, in multiple supreme court cases involving the environment. In 2007, in regards to the Clean Air Act, Scalia argued that there was no hard evidence that CO2 and other greenhouse gases were detrimental to the environment. In 2000 in a Friends of the Earth vs. Laidlaw Environmental Services lawsuit, Scalia dissented, saying that even though Laidlaw was accused of putting pollutants into the waterway, it was not harmful to the environment. There are more cases where Scalia rejects climate change and environmental problems.
There are beliefs that Scalia’s death will be beneficial to environmental laws and climate change efforts. Scalia was expected to vote against the EPA and their environmental regulations, but when his vote can no longer be counted, there are hopes for environmental changes such as the Clean Power Plan.
“In the case involving the administration’s move to implement emission standards by regulation rather than legislation, Justice Scalia voted for a stay of the regulations while the case works its way through the courts below. But that vote doesn’t tell you what are his views on the underlying policy,” said John Lindros, a Cabrini law adjunct professor. Scalia’s “stay” vote put a hold on the new EPA regulations that the Clean Power Plan would enable.
According to the FDA’s proposed rule (Carbon Pollution Emission Guidelines for Existing Stationary Sources: Electric Utility Generating Units), the Clean Power Plan proposes to limit carbon emissions from existing fossil fuel-fired electric generating units. With this plan in action, there will be hundreds of millions of tons of greenhouse gases emissions prevented from entering the atmosphere.
Scalia’s death will impact climate change, even in the slightest bit because it will force the Supreme Court to vote again on the same policies he voted a stay for.
