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posted by martyb on Monday December 17 2018, @06:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the Put-that-in-your-pipe[line]-and-smoke-it dept.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2018-12-12/judge-halts-keystone-xl-pipeline-citing-complete-disregard-climate

In his ruling, Judge Brian Morris said “the Trump administration completely disregarded the climate effects of building the Keystone pipeline,” according to Vermont law professor Pat Parenteau.

“The Trump administration dismissed, with barely a paragraph in the decision document they issued, the whole idea that the pipeline would be contributing to climate change and the judge said that's not good enough,” Parenteau explains. “[He said], ‘You really do have to take into account the growing body of science that we all know and you have to explain why it makes sense, given that, to authorize yet another major piece of fossil fuel infrastructure that will take 40 years to pay off.’”

Morris is a former justice on the Montana Supreme Court and is considered a “very moderate judge,” Parenteau adds. “He’s hardly a radical environmentalist. There are some judges on the federal bench who are more pro-environment ..., but Judge Morris isn’t in that same category.”


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by cmdrklarg on Monday December 17 2018, @06:41PM (5 children)

    by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Monday December 17 2018, @06:41PM (#775486)

    IANAL, but from what I understand the law says that the government is required to do an environmental study before allowing a project such as this to go through. The Trump Administration tried to do this by "phoning it in". Not good enough.

    To speak for myself, I'd much rather have judges who rule from the spirit of the law as well as the letter.

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    The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 17 2018, @11:04PM (4 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday December 17 2018, @11:04PM (#775611) Homepage Journal

    The key word there would be "before" no? Like the one that was done long ago?

    I don't dislike taking the spirit of the law into account but that needs to be done very carefully. "They bloody well meant $blah and you know it" is fine but creating whole new law out of thin air just because it agrees well with a previous law is not. Legislators should legislate and judges should rule on existing legislation only.

    Good example: SCOTUS saying the phrase "the people" in the second amendment does not in fact mean "the state". Pretty much every bit of correspondence from the time agrees that they very specifically meant "the people".

    Bad example: Every abuse of the commerce clause ever. The commerce clause was created to keep Georgia from slapping tariffs on or banning imports from Carolina and the like. This was in doubt to absolutely nobody back in the day. It was never remotely meant to authorize the federal government to force citizens to purchase health insurance or a million other things that everyone except lawyers seem to be able to understand instinctively were outside its meaning.

    Fuzzing the boundary between legislation and judicial activism is not a road we want to go down. Allowing unelected and unaccountable judges to create law is straight up, by definition tyranny. Regardless of if a given decision goes your way or not, you should not be wanting this. Your side will not always be in power and it will be used against you.

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    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:10PM (3 children)

      by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 18 2018, @06:10PM (#775946)

      I can't disagree with most of your sentiment. But please note, ruling only from the letter of the law is just as easily turned to tyranny as ruling from the spirit. Legislation can always be changed, provided there is enough incentive to do so, same with judge's rulings. You would think that people would understand the concept of the other guy being able to wield the power they are abusing, but too many don't have that long game in mind. They only want the short term benefits.

      "Judicial activisim" is the term used by the side that currently doesn't have the stick. They are quite happy to engage in it once they have it, aren't they?

      --
      The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:28PM (2 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:28PM (#775989) Homepage Journal

        Everyone's side but mine, seems like. That's not even a joke. The result of this specific decision I like but I still think it was a shit decision.

        My side is a side of one, by the way. I refuse to outsource my values or reasoning.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:50PM (1 child)

          by cmdrklarg (5048) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 18 2018, @07:50PM (#776007)

          My side is a side of one, by the way. I refuse to outsource my values or reasoning.

          It is commendable that you think for yourself, but a side of one can have a LOT of potential opponents, and no backup. I suspect that you'd band together with like-minded people if something threatened you and yours.

          --
          The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.