This commentary was originally published by The American Prospect.
Most of us take for granted the federal regulations that make our air cleaner, our drinking water purer, our food, highways, and workplaces safer, and our economic transactions less vulnerable to fraud and abuse. And few of us realize the extent to which those protections are subject to reversal by federal courts applying legal principles prescribed by the Supreme Court. If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh would be a fervent vote against even well-established forms of regulation.
A telling example of Kavanaugh’s ideological aversion to even minimal government regulation is his dissent in a case in which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) fined SeaWorld of Florida following a tragic incident at its Orlando facility in which a killer whale named Tilikum pulled a trainer off a platform and held her underwater until she drowned. A panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Merrick Garland, upheld OSHA’s conclusions that training killer whales was a recognized occupational hazard and that there were feasible ways to reduce that hazard. Tilikum had previously killed another trainer. The hazard could be substantially reduced by requiring trainers to keep a greater distance from the whales or providing a clear plastic barrier that would allow them to guide the movements of whales without risking attacks. The Court therefore upheld OSHA’s modest $7,000 penalty.
Kavanaugh’s dissent did not focus on the facts. Instead, he attacked the proposition that Congress meant to empower OSHA to regulate the professional sports and entertainment industries. In his mind, the real questions before the court were when “should we as a society paternalistically decide that the participants in ... sports and entertainment activities must be protected from themselves” and, more important, “who decides that the risk to participants is too high?” Kavanaugh argued that the participants in those activities were well aware of the risks and elected to participate anyway, and he suggested that government efforts to make those activities safer would cause employers to abandon them altogether.
This is the same argument that employers raised in the early 20th century when progressive state governments wanted to protect workers from the frightful hazards of industrial workplaces. A Supreme Court committed to a limited government ideology overturned many protective Progressive Era laws, and the carnage in the workplace continued until the Court rejected that ideology during the New Deal and Congress created OSHA in 1970. Kavanaugh’s beef was with the very fact of a powerful OSHA, and he hoped to limit its power by creating an exception for the sports and entertainment industries.
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Thomas McGarity | July 30, 2018
This commentary was originally published by The American Prospect. Most of us take for granted the federal regulations that make our air cleaner, our drinking water purer, our food, highways, and workplaces safer, and our economic transactions less vulnerable to fraud and abuse. And few of us realize the extent to which those protections are […]
Evan Isaacson | July 27, 2018
Today, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of the Environmental Protection Agency officially released its assessment of Chesapeake Bay restoration progress. This marked the formal conclusion of the multi-year process known as the "midpoint assessment" for the Chesapeake's cleanup plan.
Joseph Tomain | July 26, 2018
This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. When Judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated for the open U.S. Supreme Court seat, I was interested in his energy law opinions and began reading them together with some of his environmental law decisions. They seem to be written by two […]
Amy Sinden | July 25, 2018
This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. If Judge Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation process goes as quickly and affirmingly as his supporters hope, one of the cases he'll hear on his first day on the bench will invite him to consider an imponderable question: […]
Evan Isaacson | July 25, 2018
This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. President Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court has enormous environmental and public health implications – true of any high court nomination, but particularly true in this case because he would replace Justice […]
Karen Sokol | July 24, 2018
This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. "This is a case about executive power and individual liberty." That is how Judge Brett Kavanaugh started the opinion he wrote for a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals holding that the structure of the Consumer Financial […]
Laurie Ristino | July 23, 2018
Scott Pruitt's narcissistic reign as EPA Administrator consumed advocates' collective energies, and rightfully so. It was a drama that recently ended – not via Trump tweet, but by old-fashioned resignation. Alas, this victory's potential downside is that the new guy at EPA, Andrew Wheeler, may be more effective at dismantling environmental protections than Pruitt was because Wheeler actually understands how bureaucracy works. Then, of course, came the orchestrated events surrounding Justice Kennedy's retirement and President Trump's pick to fill the vacancy, thrusting Brett Kavanaugh to center stage. Environmental protection (among other issues) seems imperiled as the Court is poised to take a hard "right" turn if Kavanaugh is confirmed.
Daniel Farber | July 19, 2018
This post is part of a series on Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. Presidents control crucial government agencies with authority over the environment, food and drug safety, and workplace conditions. Through various environmental, health, safety, and other laws, Congress has given these agencies broad authority to issue rules and regulations that affect the […]
Robert L. Glicksman | July 19, 2018
This op-ed originally ran in The Hill. Last month, two Inspectors General issued scathing reports about their departments' behavior. The Justice Department's IG got all the attention, while largely overlooked was a disturbing report from the Interior Department IG, who concluded that the agency had no reasonable rationale for halting a major study of the health risks of […]