Stephen Colbert Slams Supreme Court for Terrible Toxic 'Fill' Ruling
Posted July 2, 2009 in Curbing Pollution, Saving Wildlife and Wild Places, Solving Global Warming, The Media and the Environment, U.S. Law and Policy
Last week the U.S. Supreme Court made a dreadful decision to allow the dumping of toxic gold mine waste into a pristine Alaskan lake. The court deemed this pollution allowable as "fill material" under the Clean Water Act.
Well, last night on The Colbert Report, the hilarious host pilloried the Supremes for its ridiculous ruling in his segment "Judge, Jury and Executioner."
Watch the clip (the piece starts at the 1:51 minute mark):
Unless the Obama administration fixes the fraudulant 'fill rule' imposed by the Bush administration back in 2002, we might as well start calling the nation's premier environmental protection law the Clean Watered Down Act.
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Comments
Brisbane — Jul 2 2009 12:21 PM
Colbert is quite possible the most effective journalist around!
Red Desert — Jul 2 2009 11:57 PM
According to excellent posts on Legal Planet, the Coeur decision was based largely on an '04 MOU between EPA and Interior that interpreted the Bush fill rule changes made in '02. The memo was authored by Diane Regas, an EPA career employee who now works at the Environmental Defense Fund. Has she offered any explanation of the MOU?
Legal Planet and Earth Justice say that the Obama Administration could have overturned the MOU prior to the court's decision, but chose not to. In fact, Obama's DOJ largely supported the position of Couer, the state of Alaska and the Bush DOJ.
Earth Justice has launched a campaign to rescind the memo (and the fill rule):
http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/kensington_0709?qp_source=homepage
The Legal Planet posts are here:
http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/news-flash-supreme-court-decides-coeur-alaska/#comment-817
http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/couer-alaska-and-mountaintop-removal-mining/
http://legalplanet.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/coeur-alaska-a-shifting-legal-position-by-the-obama-administration/