NEXT SCOTUS PICK KEY IN CLIMATE FIGHT

Next Supreme Court Justice Will Be Crucial to Climate Change

Eduardo Porter, February 16, 2016 (NY Times)

“…The White House claims it will prevail [in the legal challenge to its Clean Power Plan], assuring a fidgety international community it will deliver on the promises made at the climate meeting in Paris in December. Those commitments proved critical to keeping the diplomacy on track and ultimately producing a deal among more than 185 countries representing more than 98 percent of global emissions…And yet the Supreme Court’s temporary stay of the…[plan] — the last decision of global consequence of the right-leaning court on which Justice Antonin Scalia had sat since the Reagan administration — underscores just how far the United States remains from its climate goals…

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…[T]he Supreme Court’s decision last week to delay the plan — until the United States Court of Appeals in Washington decides on the merits of a challenge by 27 mostly Republican-governed states — [also] underscores just how politically vulnerable the United States’ promises truly are…[T]he American problem is first and foremost political…If the Senate were to confirm whomever President Obama nominates to succeed Justice Scalia, one of the most conservative justices on the bench, the Supreme Court would probably become more sensitive to the imperative to combat climate change. That’s not just good news for the Clean Power Plan. It could open the door to more aggressive policies…” click here for more

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