U.S. top court snubs environmental challenge to Trump's border wall

[turbinetree]

Source: Reuters

SUPREME COURT
DECEMBER 3, 2018 / 9:57 AM / UPDATED 15 MINUTES AGO

Andrew Chung


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a challenge by three conservation groups to the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, a victory for Trump who has made the wall a centerpiece of his hardline immigration policies.

The justices’ declined to hear the groups’ appeal of a ruling by a federal judge in California rejecting their claims that the administration had pursued border wall projects without complying with applicable environmental laws. The groups are the Center for Biological Diversity, the Animal Legal Defense Fund and Defenders of Wildlife.

Their lawsuits said construction operations would harm plants, rare wildlife habitats, threatened coastal birds like the snowy plover and California gnatcatcher, and other species such as fairy shrimp and the Quino checkerspot butterfly.

Brian Segee, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said he was disappointed that the court would not hear the case.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-border/u-s-top-court-snubs-environmental-challenge-to-trumps-border-wall-idUSKBN1O21QI

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This is just fucked up........................elections have consequences...................it's the court(s), this right wing court gets a two-fer for the price of one...................

[The Liberal Lion]

1. I am looking forward to the day when we liberals/progressives finally let go of the teary eyed

hope that justice will come by way of this utterly broken and corrupt system some still are calling "government". The system is too far gone for "saving". It's only saving will come by way of destruction, demolish, and rebuilding. If we can't muster the courage to destroy this system, and yes it can be done completely legally, then we are doomed to be slaves. Myself, I will be free!

People here in DU have asked me "what can be done to destroy the system legally"? As I tell you know two things to be true:
1. We are the majority
2. It will take great sacrifice and many will suffer as we bring this system to it's knees.

It will take great courage and fortitude to break free from the addiction to comfort we enjoy under the current corrupt and broken system.

First thing first, we must stop, and I mean altogether, stop using credit. Credit is the grease which creates the great machine bondage, and Americans on a whole are addicted to it's effects. Live within your means. Correction, live below your means and use your surplus to "Buy/Create" your freedom.
Second, disengage from worthless conspicuous consumption. Buy only what you need to survive and maintain a healthy lifestyle. Live on less and toughen yourself to a level of discomfort.

These two things alone can and will do devastating damage to this false economy of servitude. Why? Because we are the majority and WE have the true power.

Third, create local levels of communities of caring. If we have the courage to carry out the first two steps we will need local institutions set up to care for those who will be harmed the most by the legal destruction of the economy. However, these communities of caring will create the basis for a new socially minded society.
Finally, we must become self sufficient. Each household must acquire the means to insure it's own individual survival. These methods of individual survival of households will extend into the community where networks of self sufficient communities can form and serve as a new basis for which an enduring, human-centric nation and economy can be built.

These are my thoughts and this is what I work towards myself. I no longer have any faith whatsoever in government (in it's current form) being able to rise to the challenge of solving society wide problems. If a solutions is going to come then for my circumstances it will be me who brings it for myself.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

5. Are you advocating a survivalist economy? Each of us with our own little cabin in the woods?

Is this Susan Sarandon's "revolution"? Or Cliven Bundy's "revolution"?

[The Liberal Lion]

8. Not at all.

When it comes to the self sufficiency portion of my post I am advocating this method as a means to breaking free from the system as it exist currently and as a means of disabling it. What is needed, from my perspective, is a society/economy where everyone benefits from technology and the labor it can provide us. And where government is administered by competent persons with deep understanding of the issues facing society and the resources and knowledge to produce credible and workable solutions.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

9. Ok, that sounds agreeable. I hope we find many such leaders and administrators.

Democrats have a number of such people. Republicans have a few, too, but they're in hiding, beaten down by Trump, Teapartiers, and McConnell.

[onenote]

2. All it would have taken to have court hear the case is four votes

So at least one of the Democratic appointees (and possibly more) didn't want the Court to take the case.

Having read the briefs, it was almost certain that the Court would refuse to take this case. The vast majority of cert petitions are denied, especially those that, like this one, do not present a question as to which there is a division in the courts below.

Of course, you are right that elections have consequences and that those consequences will be felt at the Supreme Court. However, in this instance, the legislation that is the subject of the litigation was passed in 2005, so what is being addressed here is the consequence of an earlier set of elections.

[3Hotdogs]

3. First shittty decision of the day. More to follow.

[onenote]

4. By the way, the Reuter's story doesn't present a very accurate description of the issue in the case

The lawsuit didn't directly challenge the failure of the administration to comply with environmental laws. They challenged, on separation of powers grounds, the fact that Congress had, in legislation passed in 1996 and then broadened in 2006, authorized the waiver of those laws.

[pazzyanne]

6. That being said, it does not minimize the ecological and environmental damage that wall will do.

The was negatively impacts the survival of land animals, many of them endangered, who have for years crossed the Rio Grand between the US and Mexico. My only hope for the future of these endangered animals that we regain both houses and this can be remedied as quickly as possible.

[onenote]

7. True.

It's sad that Congress opened the door for these waivers back in 1996. Might have been wiser to challenge it then.