There has been a lot written about the Supreme Court's decision yesterday NOT to gut the Voting Rights Act - yet - by removing judicial review, most of it composed of a nearly audible sigh of relief. Even some wingnut commentators profess not to understand how the rest of the wingnut population can be so darn inconsistent in their reasoning. Ponnuru appears to just be noticing that his fellow righties now change their standard talking points and self-described "deeply held beliefs" whenever they might interfere with attacking their target du jour. Perhaps next week it will occur to him to notice that Packard hasn't made a car since 1947 and Dwight Eisenhower isn't the president any more.
Not that I don't share in the general feeling that we dodged yet another unwelcome, unConstitutional bullet from the Right-of-Idi Amin Bush SCOTUS, but there was another decision handed down yesterday that no one seems to be talking about though it has far-reaching implications for our environment: a decision that it's perfectly OK for the ACE to poison public water supplies.
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that the Clean Water Act does not prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from allowing mining waste to be dumped into rivers, streams and other waters.
In a 6-to-3 decision that drew fierce criticism from environmentalists, the court said the Corps of Engineers had the authority to grant Coeur Alaska Inc., a gold mining company, permission to dump the waste known as slurry into Lower Slate Lake, north of Juneau.
“We conclude that the corps was the appropriate agency to issue the permit and that the permit is lawful,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority.
The corps permit, issued in 2005, said that 4.5 million tons of waste from the Kensington mine could be dumped into the lake even though it would obliterate life in its waters. The corps found that disposing of it there was less environmentally damaging than other options.
(emphasis added)
Yessiree Bob's your uncle. According to the BushCo Supreme Court, the ACE has the authority to tell a private industry (for whom its members hope to work for Big $$$ when they get out of the Corps) whether or not they can save $millions$ in expenses (which will then go directly into the pockets of executives who will be doing that hiring and the investors who will OK it) merely by the act of dumping toxic waste into water people swim in and probably also drink, either directly or through the springs and aquifers usually connected with lake water systems.
That's what you call priorities, folks. At least for conservatives. For the rest of us, maybe, not so much.
At least they admitted it. Others are not so happy, of course.
“If a mining company can turn Lower Slate Lake in Alaska into a lifeless waste dump, other polluters with solids in their wastewater can potentially do the same to any water body in America,” said Trip Van Noppen, president of the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, whose lawyer argued the case before the court.
Yup. All they have to do is get the ACE to give them the ironically named greenlight and they're good to go. Summer campers might want to consider wearing haz-mat suits when they twiddle their toes by the lakeshore, but hey, eggs and omelettes, right? Worth it to save a corporation thousands of dollars in legitimate business expenses, no?
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