Source: https://thepercolatorblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/20/is-the-ninth-circuit-due-for-environmental-correction/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 17:10:02+00:00

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Will 2012 provide a repeat of 2012? Specifically, will the Supreme Court’s October 2012 term find the Supreme Court repeatedly reversing the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in environmental cases as it did in the October 2008 term? In 2008, the Supreme Court heard an unusually high number of environmental cases, six: Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Summers v. Earth Island Inst., Entergy Corp. v. Riverkeeper Inc., Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Se. Alaska Conservation Council,Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. United States and Shell Oil Co. v. United States (the latter two of which were consolidated). In all of these cases, the side favored by environmental groups had prevailed below, and in all of these cases the Supreme Court reversed. Equally notable, however, was that all but one of these cases (Entergy) came from the Ninth Circuit. To some the Supreme Court’s October 2008 term showed the Roberts Court lacked sympathy for environmentalist positions. To others, it was further evidence the Ninth Circuit was out of step on environmental issues.
2012 could provide a repeat of 2008 because the Supreme Court is being asked to grant cert in several cases from the Ninth Circuit that are potential outliers in environmental law. As Richard Frank notes at Legal Planet, the Court will consider the such cases in tomorrow’s conference – Pacific Merchant Shipping Assn. v. Goldstene, Georgia-Pacific West, Inc. v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center (along with Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, another petition from the same case), and Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Resources Defense Council – all three of which have been identified among SCOTUSBlog’s “Petitions to Watch.” Of note, the Solicitor General has recommended against cert in all three cases even though the Department of Justice believes the Ninth Circuit was wrong all three times. According to the SG, each decision was wrong, but not cert-worthy.
In the normal course of affairs, an SG brief recommending against cert is a likely indicator that the Supreme Court will deny certiorari. Yet that has not been the practice of late in environmental cases. The Supreme Court has taken quite a few environmental cases in which the federal government lost below but nonetheless urged the Court to take pass, including Entergy, Coeur Alaska,Monstanto v. Geerston Farms, and Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy. It’s almost as if the Roberts Court does not trust the judgment of the SG’s office as to whether environmental cases are cert worthy.

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