Cases on the docket could alter American life on many issues.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s death could change the course of history on the contentious social and legal issues pending before the Supreme Court this term, especially in closely divided cases where he was expected to serve as a lynchpin of a conservative majority…
Climate change
Obama’s Clean Power Plan could be in the hands of the D.C. Circuit Court.
One of Scalia’s last official acts as a justice was to deliver a large dent in Obama’s climate legacy, providing one of five votes to stay the Clean Power Plan, which regulates carbon emissions from power plants. The decision could set back implementation of the rule by years. A 4-4 ideological split on the Supreme Court raises the stakes for the more liberal D.C. Circuit’s eventual decision on the Clean Power Plan, though the high court would still have to lift its stay if the rule is upheld…
Source:
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/scalia-death-how-will-the-supreme-court-change-219256
h/t to “O’Driscoll Paddy”
[added and title updated] Over at The Hill they say this:
Greens faced with nightmare scenario at the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court’s decision this week to halt President Obama’s sweeping climate change regulation for power plants is causing environmentalists and experts to wonder whether they need a backup plan.
The Obama administration has repeatedly said, both before and after the judicial stay was ordered, that it does not have a Plan B if the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan gets overturned.
Officials insist that a backup plan isn’t necessary because once the high court hears the case, it will find that the rule is well within the boundaries of the Clean Air Act and the Constitution.
“We remain confident that when this is given its day in court, it’s going to be upheld on the merits,” White House spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters.
“Plan A’s a good one, and I don’t want anyone to think it isn’t,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in January.
But the unexpected move by the Supreme Court nonetheless caused a jolt among environmentalists, reminding them that the nine justices at the Supreme Court might interpret the law differently than they do.
“The Supreme Court took unprecedented action, so of course it makes everyone pause and reevaluate,” said John Coequyt, global climate policy director for the Sierra Club.
…
It is the first time the high court has stayed a regulation after a lower court refused to do so, and the first time the justices have issued a stay before any court heard the merits of the case.
Now the EPA cannot enforce any parts of the rule until the litigation is over, a major win for the states and energy interests who argued that, if the rule were allowed to proceed and later be overturned, they would experience irreparable harm.
But since the Clean Power Plan is such a major piece of the administration’s climate policy, its downfall would make it difficult to achieve the emissions cuts needed to slow global warming and to meet the country’s pledge under last year’s Paris climate agreement.
Complicating the matter is the timing. The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has to hear the case and rule before the Supreme Court takes it up, putting any decision about the next steps in the hands of the next president.
Additionally, if the Supreme Court rules against the EPA, its decision could be narrow — allowing the agency to try to rewrite the rule — or it could be broad, potentially prohibiting any future greenhouse gas regulations for power plants.
Environmentalists were generally tight-lipped about what a Plan B might look like, instead repeating their confidence that the rule will stand.
More: http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/269349-greens-faced-with-nightmare-scenario-at-the-supreme-court
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Here in the Bay Area those caring compassionate liberals are cheering and celebrating the death of Justice Scalia.
It really is one of the most appalling spectacles I have ever had the misfortune to witness. Profoundly disgusting.
We need to change the name of our country because there’s nothing United about it 🙁
IMO we should recognize the disunity and split up the USA. Let the Union of Socialist State Republics be as Commie as it wants to be and the the rest of the country be as American as it wants to be.
moments when the mask is removed are worth recalling
Ah, the intolerance of the ” tolerant ” left on display !!
Okay Some one you are concerned about The present administrate trying to railroad a new Supreme court Justice through the Senate or a recess appointment.
Here is a little history on FDR’s efforts to Pack the court.
http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/npr/125789097/fdr-s-losing-battle-to-pack-the-supreme-court
michael
Ummm, what is your point ?? It’s not illegal to send a bill to congress , no matter how stupid the idea is !!
Marcus
Just that it was an early attempt to gain control of the court so as to stop it for declaring laws unconstitutional.
It was a power grab and congress which had voted in the new deal laws saw it as that.
Oh and a President can’t send a bill to congress he has to get some one in congress to propose it
michael
Folks, have to weigh in to keep WUWT semi-credible. Loose the conspiracy theories. Period.
Scalia was 79, and significantly overweight. Regrettable but likely natural loss.
I have to agree, enough of this, take it elsewhere. All further replies of this nature will be deleted.
Thanks, Anthony.
Ditto.
I told everyone a while ago that the big play for Obama to remain as President past his term would be for Hillary to win the nomination, for Obama to prosecute her just weeks before the election, then ask the Supreme Court to delay the Presidential election until the Democrats successfully nominate someone else, all in the name of “fairness”. He would hope the new Congress would be controlled by the Democrats who would allow this delay. The only obstacle in his way was the make up of the Supreme Court which is now in doubt. If yuo do not own a rifle (the hell with handguns) it is time to get on NOW.
Democrats in Senate passed a resolution in1960 against election year Supreme Court appointments
Read it and weep, Democrats. The shoe is on the other foot. David Bernstein at the Washington Post’s Volokh Conspiracy blog:
Thanks to a VC commenter, I discovered that in August 1960, the Democrat-controlled Senate passed a resolution, S.RES. 334, “Expressing the sense of the Senate that the president should not make recess appointments to the Supreme Court, except to prevent or end a breakdown in the administration of the Court’s business.” Each of President Eisenhower’s SCOTUS appointments had initially been a recess appointment who was later confirmed by the Senate, and the Democrats were apparently concerned that Ike would try to fill any last-minute vacancy that might arise with a recess appointment.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/02/dems_in_senate_passed_a_resolution_in1960_against_election_year_supreme_court_appointments.html
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/86-1960/s415
Paul, really good stuff in this thread, you know the faith much better than I do. As for our current Holy Father, Francis is a pope that is humble as regards his personal life but, in my opinion, incredibly arrogant as regards his office. I’d much prefer that was reversed (though it would be best if he was humble in both). The Church typically takes it’s time – sometimes hundreds of years – to officially proclaim dogma that has been believed since the beginning. Francis has no issue hastily putting pathetic, junk science in a papal encyclical, and then flapping his gums about it.
Francis need to do his job of promoting historical Christianity, and not promoting false secular modern religions, which is exactly what CAGW is.
The real painful thing is – CAGW is everything the Church is against. It’s root go back to at least the mid-1960s population bomb movement (if not before, in the various eugenics movements) , and it is firmly rooted in the culture of death. As has been mentioned here by others, it hurts the world’s poor the most. Why Francis is somehow blinded by this, I don’t know. We need to pray for him.
God will prevent Francis from making serious errors w/r/t Christian dogma, but if he wants to make himself a useful idiot of the CAGW movement, he’s on his own. The Church will get past this, but it’s a very sad state of affairs when the pope throws his lot in with a bunch of misanthropes.
I think Jorge Mario Bergoglio is a product of his upbringing. I believe that he grew up learning to be hostile to the USA and listening to colloquial criticism of capitalism which he integrated into his thinking. I believe that he is not a very good scientific thinker, nor should he be necessarily. I also believe that he imperfectly good. I read both of his encyclicals several times and since they are not excathedra, his writing cannot be deemed infallible by the CC. Good because he was wrong about CO2 being a poison and trickle-down economics.
CO2 is, essential for all life and is definitely not a poison.
So, Catholics will have to learn to listen guardedly to this Pope since he often forays into subject matter not related to faith and morals. That is what Scalia has done I believe. Scalia knew where to draw the dotted line.
I don’t know whether it is relevant to the present context or not, I would like to bring to the notice of international forums related to judiciary in India. Like in the case of global warming in US there is so much activism on scientific issues — free discussion — but in India, educated group rarely enter the arena on scientific issues except vested interest activist groups with their one sided arguments, like warmist groups, blindly defend their view point, here no science involved. I raised the issue of science versus judiciary in resolving inter-state river water disputes. I tried to put this before the judiciary at the highest level and as well government level and different forums. No response. Even the forums were not interested to discuss on this. Finally I put this in a book form “Irrigation and Irrigation Projects in India: Tribunals, Disputes and Water Wars Perspective” published by BSPublications, 2016, 154p.
Late Justice Antonin Scalia of US Supreme Court, while dealing with a case in 2006, clearly differentiated between environment and atmosphere and accordingly the judgment followed but in the case of Tribunal with unfettered powers bulldozed the technical issues presented judgment through technical fraud in favour of a particular state at the cost of other state. Even when this was brought to the highest court Chief Justice and the President and Prime Minister of India, there was no response.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”
Though the judiciary is one of the four pillars of the Indian Constitution, it has become no different from other three pillars with reference to corruption. The 2014 reports in media high lights how Indian judiciary is functioning starting with their recruitment. Here the major issue is even after retirement they enjoy power. In fact, I think, this issue started with my letter to the Chief Justice of India with a copy to the Prime Minister of India on 11th February 2013. In this I raised three issues namely “not before me” [A layer can say I don’t argue before you then the case will be transferred to another bench; through this the case will go to a favoured bench], “quid pro co” [here there is no need to have a proof but they try to derive the issue indirectly to punish rivals] and “recruitment – collegiums system”. Under collegiums system, judges recruit judges and with this most inefficient person become judges [by paying bribe or by serving political or business interests]. Former two are illogical and are used to manipulate justice. In the state of Andhra Pradesh in India, to destroy the political rivals or to protect the criminals/corrupt politicians these two clauses were/are used invariably. The misuses of these two clauses are more hazardous than corruption.
Justice is rarely achieved with such a system. Unfortunately in the recruitment of judges there is no independent body like Union Public Service Commission [UPSC] and thus lacking integrity. Majority of the judges belong to particular industrial/business/political groups as they are behind their appointments/recruitments. My letter was forwarded to the law ministry and law ministry organized a meeting with Chief Ministers of States, High Courts & Supreme Court judges along with Prime Minister. Chief Ministers favoured UPSC but judges disagreed. However, government brought out National Judicial Appointment Commission [NJAC] Act, 2014 in place of existing collegiums system of recruitment and this was notified on April 15, 2015. Judges fought against this order in Supreme Court on this for their power but when I submitted to three successive Chief Justices of the Supreme Court on fraudulent act of tribunal of Krishna Water sharing, they did not even cared to acknowledge it.
A judgment of the Supreme Court [the Highest] is dumped in to dust bin by a High Court [state level]. This relates to two drinking water reservoirs in Hyderabad/India built before 1930s. To protect them government brought out government orders in 1989, 1994 & 1996 and later the Supreme Court order in 2000. None of these stopped the individuals and as well governments to violate these. The Supreme Court in its judgment used the word “Precautionary Principle” but yet violations indiscriminately. When environmental groups [including myself] approach the High Court in one case dismissed as the bench was headed by a judge of ruling party. In my petition though the court directed the government and government submitted undertaking, nothing stopped the violators.
Unless educated people come out openly raised the issue, judiciary play with the lives of billions all around the world. If the US government appoints favoured person in the Supreme Court bench the the results will be reversed. We call that as science.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Whew! And I come her to read about science.
I can get this mindless political crap anywhere else on the internet. Generally, WUWT is an island of sanity,
Unfortunately Chip, CC left the pure science and entered the political science arena a long, long time ago.
I’m late to this party and I’m not going through 300 plus comments. This may have been posted previously.
Interesting view.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/world/if-republican-led-senate-blocks-obamas-supreme-court-nomination-he-wins-anyway
See my link to the WaPo article and an extract from it upthread at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/14/justice-scalias-death-could-change-supreme-court-position-on-climate/comment-page-1/#comment-2144873
Gloateus Maximus
February 14, 2016 at 2:28 pm
In defense of Italian food, the Mediterranean diet can be very healthy, given enough garlic and red wine to counteract the pasta, provolone, parmesan and prosciutto.
Dietary advice has about as much actual real evidence behind some of the advice such as the “Mediterranean Diet or the “Food Pyramid” as does most climate science.
See here:http://www.market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231117
I don’t think anyone here is seriously offering that there was a “conspir@cy” to murder Scalia.
However.
When someone with such power passes away in an unexpected fashion, and unattended, it would seem that an autopsy would be indicated. It should be done as a matter of record, because it’s the right thing to do. It would accomplish at least three things:
1) It would discourage, to some extent foul play, because if an autopsy was guaranteed there would be an increased chance of discovering foul play. If this saved a future life, this reason alone would be enough.
2) It would defuse arguments about whether or not it should be done, and the questioning of political motives of those on either side of the argument.
3) It would defuse future arguments about it. After all – foul play was ruled out during the routine autopsy.
There must have been foul play. After all, grossly overweight 79 year olds don’t normally face any health risks.
Also late to this party so only scanned the various diatribes –
It seems the big ‘take home’ on the issue is that the Supreme Court actually issued its ruling that the lower court MUST issue a stay against the EPA until the intricacies of the EPA rules are finally adjudicated. That part is a done deal regardless of any future Supreme court tie votes or 5-4 decisions the other way. [I suppose Chief Justice Roberts might weasel a way to change that if he really was ‘encouraged’ enough to try].
The result is that in the TIME it takes for the case (and the various appeals and permutations) to make its way through the courts the November elections will have taken place. Since one of the first things a lawyer learns in law school is how to stretch cases out to make as much money as possible it should be very easy to find law firms eager to create as much delay as possible – and be successful! This works strongly to the advantage of those who can use the time to create a new political environment within the EPA ie elect a President who shares those values.
There is HOPE after all.