March 16, 2016
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 16, 2016
Contact:
David Jakubiak
Senate Leadership Should Hold Fair Hearing of Supreme Court Nominee as Required by Constitution
Not Doing So is “Disrespectful of Americans’ Rights to Breathe Clean Air, Drink Safe Water, and Live in Communities Without Toxic Threats to Their Children’s Health”
Statement by Howard Learner, Executive Director, Environmental Law & Policy Center
“We are pleased that President Obama is exercising his constitutional responsibility to nominate a highly-qualified Justice for the United States Supreme Court. The Senate leadership is putting politics ahead of their constitutional duty to hold a fair hearing and fully consider the President’s Supreme Court nominee, which is disrespectful of Americans’ rights to breathe clean air, drink safe water, and live in communities without toxic threats to their children’s health,” said Howard Learner, Executive Director of the Environmental Law & Policy Center. “The Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 stay vote, blocking the U.S. EPA’s Clean Power Plan standards, should remind everyone what’s at stake.”
The U.S. Supreme Court, by an unusual 5-4 order, halted implementation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan in February. The Clean Power Plan will both help to drive clean energy development and reduce greenhouse gas pollution that harms public health and our environment. The Clean Power Plan is based on the Clean Air Act requirement, recognized by the Supreme Court in the Massachusetts v. EPA decision, that the U.S. EPA regulate to reduce greenhouse gas pollution, which endangers public health.
###