Here's a name you're going to be hearing over and over and over again for the next few weeks. Brett Cavanaugh. He's been nominated to the Supreme Court. Who is he and more importantly, what does he mean for the environment? That's coming up on Parts per Billion. Hello, and welcome to a special episode of Parts per Billion, the Policy Podcast from Bloomberg Environment. I'm your host, David Schultz. So
we've got a new Supreme Court nominee. He's an appeals Court judge named Brett Cavanaugh, and he's actually got quite the environmental record. So to bringing up to speed, I brought my colleague Fatima, who's saying, into our studio to talk about what a potential Justice Cavanaugh, that could be his title pretty soon, what Justice Kavanaugh would mean for environmental policy. Fatima, thank you for joining us, Thank you
for having me. Yes, indeed, so let's start off with the basic who is Brett Cavanaugh and what's his background? Where's he from? Sure, so, Brett Cavanaugh is a d C Circuit judge. He's from Maryland. So a lot of people, if I've been reading a lot of reports, let's say he's a DC insider. He is Yale, educated in undergrad and law school and has quite a background or a paper trail, so to speak over opinions he's written before. So that's helpful to people to know exactly where he
might be ruling. He's not an unknown quantity exactly. Yeah. So, what are some notable environmental cases that he's heard? You know, which side does he tend to come down on? You know, does he support the EPA's authority to regulate pollution or does he think that, you know, the EPA needs to be reined in. So in the cases that he has written, opinions and a sense at about or over have generally
cited against the EPA. In twenty seventeen, he wrote an opinion that ruled that the EPA didn't have the authority to require companies to replace certain chemicals with more sustainable alternatives. He also wrote an opinion that struck down portions of the agency's cross state Air Pollution rule. When it comes to the authority of the EPA, it is really interesting and really important to keep note of a certain case that he cites often or has at least talked about,
called the Chevron Rules. Oh yeah, so that the Chevron rule for those who don't know. It comes from a Supreme Court case from nineteen eighty four that sets forth a legal test that gives the court the ability to defer to an administrative agencies' powers or their reasonable interpretation. This is where like, if you have a law that's not really clear. You know, the law says do X, but there's you know, the agency is saying, well, what
is X? We're not quite sure the court will defer to the agency's interpretation and not second guess them, right, And he's gone on the record to say that the Court doing that through the Chevron Rule is a judicially orchestrated shift of power from Congress to the executive branch. So in judicial speaking, he doesn't like that. No, he doesn't like it exactly. So that could give us a lot of ability to analyze what he may or may not rule on or write opinions for in the future
about environmental cases. So it sounds like overall he's just someone who really believes that the federal government has too much power or has too much power in a lot of cases and wants to see that rained in, and that could have a big impact on what the EPA is able to do when it regularly pollution. Absolutely, And something that was interesting to note earlier today Andrew Childers,
one of our editors, Hey, hey, Andrew, Yeah. He he pointed out that in quite a few of Kavanaugh's opinions or dissents he mentions or he at least balances the jobs and public policy or public safety implications of certain EPA rules. So that might be something that we could look towards in terms of how he could rule in environmental cases. Yeah, that was a good find by our super editor Andrew Childers, who found that, you know, when he looks at environmental cases, he doesn't just look at
the potential for environmental damage. He also looks at the potential for people to lose their jobs over the restoring the environment. So that's something that not all judges do. The last thing we wanted to ask you about is sort of let's say he does get confirmed. I mean that's a big, big, big if. But let's say he does get confirmed before the Supreme courts next term starts on October firs. Does he have any sort of environmental
cases that he'll actually be hearing up there. Yes, Actually, the first case that the Supreme Court is going to look at is a case called Wirehauser Company versus US Fish and Wildlife Service. I hope I said the name correctly. I have no idea, but it sounded here, so let's just go with that. So the case is about it's an endangered species case about a specific type of dusky
gopher frog. Dusky gopher frog. Well, loyal listeners of Parts Pavilion will remember that we had a former Deputy Attorney General, John Cruden on the show recently, I guess actually not that recently, it was a year ago, and he actually brought this case up. He talked about the dusky gopher frog. So this is a case that Brett Kavanaugh actually might
hear about the dusky gopher frog. Yes, if nominated, he would be hearing this case and for In short, it revolves around whether the US Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to designate a large portion of private land in Louisiana as a critical habitat for this endangered frog. So the parties in the case are disagreeing whether the Endangered Species Act allows this designation, and this could frustrate
whether or not you could actually sell the land. So it is a really interesting case Alan Kovski, another Bloomberg Environment writer, is covering this case and has been for quite some time. Okay, shout out to Allan there, but that was actually Fatima Hussein talking about Supreme Court nominee Brett Cavanaugh. Thank you, Fatima for jumping on the mic with us. Thank you for more of a reporting on legal issues and other topics like this. Visit our website
at news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com. That's news dot Bloomberg Environment dot com. Today's episode of Parts for Billion was produced by myself as well as Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. Our editor is Mursa Horn, and our audio engineer is Nicholas and Zelata. The music for this episode is a message by Jazzar. It was used under a Creative Commons license. More information can be found at betterwith Music dot com