Environmental Groups Back Sotomayor

(From Grist.org)

Green groups are throwing their weight behind Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court, even though she doesn’t have much of a record on environmental decisions and hasn’t always ruled in favor of enviros.

More than 60 environmental and Native American groups—including the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Greenpeace USA, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Center for Biological Diversity—have sent a letter [PDF] to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee offering unqualified support for her nomination. The Senate Judiciary Committee will be holding confirmation hearings on Sotomayor this week.

“Despite her long tenure on the federal bench, Judge Sotomayor has sat on relatively few environmental cases,” the groups write in their letter. “Judge Sotomayor’s record evinces no clear bias in favor of or against environmental claims. Instead, it reflects intellectual rigor, meticulous preparation, and fairness. ... Her impeccable credentials, wealth of experience, and exceptional legal mind will benefit the Court and the nation.”

Sotomayor’s most significant environmental ruling was in the case Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA, heard by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2007. As Kate Sheppard explains in an examination of Sotomayor’s green record, the case centered on whether the U.S. EPA should be allowed to consider the cost-effectiveness of measures to protect fish and other aquatic life in rivers and lakes near power plants. Sotomayor sided with the enviros, writing what Earthjustice calls “a careful 80-page opinion upholding critical Clean Water Act safeguards.” The Supreme Court later reversed that ruling.

Read more here.