By Denis Hayes, President and CEO, The Bullitt Foundation. Mr. Hayes, coordinated the first Earth Day in April 1970, and is Honorary Chairman of the Earth Day Network.
Extensive recent media attention has focused on setbacks for environmentalists at the hands of the Tea Party activists bent on limiting the ability of the federal government to protect the environment. Indeed, it seems Tea Party elements are comfortable filling our harbors with substances far more toxic than tea.
But a sea change in environmental law is occurring without out as much notice, one that is disconcerting, and calls out for heightened attention, and action.
In recent years, our courts have issued rulings undercutting the Clean Water Act, lifting deep water drilling moratoriums, expanding mountain top removal, and weakening other environmental protec
tions.
On Tuesday, just days before Earth Day, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in American Elec. Power Co. v. Connecticut, which centers on whether a string of states can proceed with a lawsuit against coal-fired power plants to force restrictions on the pollutants they emit. The Obama administration, which continues to disappoint environmental groups, urged the Supreme Court to shut the lawsuit down, claiming that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will eventually get around to crafting regulations curtailing emissions of carbon dioxide.
The lawsuit lodged by Connecticut, New York, California, Rhode Island, Vermont, Iowa and New York City, says the EPA is taking far too long to implement such regulations. The Los Angeles Times reports that during oral argument the justices, both liberal and conservative, seemed ready to side with the administration and the power companies, including American Electric Power, Xcel Energy, Duke Energy and Southern Co., and toss the lawsuit out of court.
It is not surprising that many environmentalists are deeply disturbed by the anti-environmental court rulings and the administration’s unwillingness to remain firm on even the most vitally important environmental issues.
From its earliest days, the modern environmental movement has taken pride in its superb litigators. In the 1970s and 80s -- when the federal judiciary still aspired to objectivity and neutrality -- our legal gladiators routinely won landmark cases. In more recent years, however, right-wing extremists have successfully packed the courts with anti-environmental zealots who ignore legislative intent and scientific evidence.
"Forty years ago today, twenty million Americans - fully one-tenth of our country's population at the time - came together to express the wakeup call that was Earth Day 1970,"