From Environmental Capital (Sotomayor ... the cost of environmental protection):
Now that Sonia Sotomayor has gone from presumptive front-runner to official nominee for the Supreme Court, what’s that mean for environmental issues? ...
In 2007, Ms. Sotomayor sided with the fishes and against power companies and the Environmental Protection Agency. That is, in Riverkeeper vs. EPA, she argued that the EPA can’t weigh costs and benefits in deciding what the “best technology” is for protecting fish that get sucked into power plants.
In a nutshell, there’s no point in tallying up the marginal costs of extra environmental protections when Congress has already decided they’re worth it. ...
In April, the Supreme Court overturned that decision in a 6-3 ruling; justice David Souter, who Ms. Sotomayor would replace, was one of the dissenters. The Supremes ruled that the EPA could in fact tally up the costs of environmental protections. “Best technology” means the technology that most effectively ensures environmental protections, not that would provide environmental protections at any cost.
In effect, this ruling destroyed thousands of green (consulting) jobs for environmental economists. Do we really want a job destroyer on the Supreme Court?
