Pat Gallagher, Sierra Club Program Director, speaking before the US Senate, opposing the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as recorded by C-SPAN3. Emphasis mine, of course.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today on behalf of the Sierra Club and its 2.8 million members and supporters nationwide. The Supreme Court Justice holds considerable power over the laws which safeguard the air we breathe and water we drink, and the integrity of our democracy. Unfortunately, Judge Gorsuch's ideology threatens bed rock and environmental law and the rights of citizens to a fair and equal voice. For these reasons the Sierra Club respectfully opposes Judge Gorsuch's confirmation to the Supreme Court. Judge Gorsuch has displayed a consistent willingness to close courthouse doors to citizens while holding them open for corporate interests.
Think for a moment of the child in Bakersfield, California, struggling to breathe as result of oil and gas operations right outside her home and school, or of the family who might not be able to take their annual camping trip to the Wayne National Forest in Ohio because of fossil fuel drilling operations at that place. Or of the families here in Washington, D.C. who continue to suffer from the lead contamination of their drinking water. I presume that everyone in this room would agree that every single one of these people deserve access to federal courts to remedy these wrongs. Unfortunately, Judge Gorsuch's writings and judicial records show he would shut courthouse doors on many of these people who want nothing more than to protect their air, water, public lands, and their families.
In 2005, Judge Gorsuch authored an article in the National Review entitled “Liberals and Lawsuits” where he criticized those who seek to remedy injustices in the federal courts when the executive branch fails to do its job. While Judge Gorsuch has reportedly stated that he wishes this National Review article would just quote en quote “disappear”, his judicial record continues to reflect this philosophy as he has repeatedly denied environmental plaintiffs access to the courts. Where citizens must jump through multiple, often insurmountable, hurdles just to get inside Judge Gorsuch's courtroom, corporations have been able to walk right in.
Let me cite two examples.
In 2013, the Sierra Club moved to intervene in a lawsuit that an off-road vehicle group brought against the Forest Service challenging the closure of certain forest trails to off-road vehicles. The court granted us intervention, but Judge Gorsuch dissented, Judge Gorsuch concluding that we should have been excluded from the case. Tellingly, neither the government, the off-road vehicle group, nor the majority of judges objected to our participation in that case.
Second, in 2005, a coalition of citizens groups, including the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club, challenged a Utah County's attempt to take over Red Rock Wilderness Areas that were managed by the Bureau Of Land Management by claiming that they were county highways. Judge Gorsuch ruled that the citizens did not have standing to sue; they did not get into the courtroom. In an emphatic dissent to Judge Gorsuch’s ruling, one that echoes my testimony here today, Judge Luciero, also of the 10th Circuit stated “a citizen’s right to protest and be heard on the supremacy of federal rules and regulations is ignored”.
Not only has Judge Gorsuch limited access to courts, he has stated open hostility to the Chevron Doctrine, a long standing precedent of the Supreme Court that ensures scientific integrity is respected as our public servants implement clean air and clean water regulations. The Chevron Doctrine ensures laws that the laws on the books are carried out by career public servants using the best available science.
Here’s the most troubling issue. Judge Gorsuch's opinion that Chevron Deference violates the Constitution echoes the current White House's extreme anti-agency demagoguery. One month ago, Trump’s senior adviser Steve Bannon gave a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in which he professed that a White House priority is the “deconstruction of the administrative state.” Trump's massive budget cut for EPA was the next hammer to fall. Sadly, Judge Gorsuch's ideology will further this agenda, hamstringing the EPA’s ability to enact pollution safeguards and incentivising corporate polluters to challenge the EPA at every turn, thereby forcing federal judges to second-guess agency scientists. In closing, we now stand at a precipice in history. How we deal with climate disruption? How will we lift up our communities who lack access to clean drinking water and clean air? How will we leave a safe and livable future for our children? America cannot afford the appointment of yet another justice whose ideology disfavors citizens’ groups, favors corporate interests, and leads to the degradation of the environment, and our democracy. This why the Sierra Club respectfully opposes the confirmation of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.