哈佛大学法学院教授说在最高法院环境法可能会遇到麻烦-新东方前途出国

　　Potentially troubling times for environmental law in the Supreme Court, say HLS professors

　　HLS教授说，在最高法院环境法可能会遇到麻烦

　　By Brett Milano, October 1, 2019

　　Brett Milano，2019年10月1日

　　These are potentially troubling times for environmental law in the Supreme Court, according to Harvard Law School Professors Jody Freeman LL.M. ’91 S.J.D. ’95, director of HLS’ Environmental and Energy Law Program, and Richard Lazarus ’79, a leading expert in environmental law and the Supreme Court. Though the news isn’t all bad, both warned of brewing issues ahead.

　　哈佛大学法学院教授乔迪·弗里曼（jody freeman ll.m.《美国法典》第91卷第95页，hls环境与能源法项目主任）和理查德·拉扎鲁斯（richard lazarus）79页，他是环境法和最高法院的首 席专家，他们认为，对于最高法院的环境法来说，现在是一个潜在的麻烦时期。尽管消息并不全是坏消息，但两人都警告说，未来可能会有酝酿中的问题。

　　The two professors focused on environmental cases in their annual “SCOTUS Review and Preview,” held at HLS on Sept. 27.

　　这两位教授在9月27日于HLS举行的年度“SCOTUS Review and Preview”中专注于环境案例。

　　They presented the past year as one of transition, with the emergence of a new conservative majority. But as Lazarus noted at the outset, the rightward swing hasn’t been quite as dramatic as expected—at least not yet.

　　他们把过去的一年看作是过渡时期，出现了新的保守党多数派。但正如拉扎鲁斯一开始指出的那样，右转并没有像预期的那样剧烈，至少现在还没有。

　　“The Court is trying to find a new equilibrium,” he said. “One of the big issues was how far the conservative majority would go and how quickly, and there have been some surprising results.” The first surprise was that the liberal faction has reasserted itself: Over the past term the justice who most often asked the first question was Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’56-’58. “This was a symbolic statement from her, an ‘I’m still here’.” Also surprising, Lazarus said, was that Trump appointees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch ’91 have only voted the same way 53 percent of the time. “They’re not liberals, but there was a lot of fragmentation,” he said. “It’s a Court that’s really in search of itself.”

　　他说：“法院正在试图找到一个新的平衡点。”“最大的问题之一是保守党的多数派会走多远，速度有多快，而且有一些令人惊讶的结果。”第一个令人惊讶的是，自由派已经重新表明了自己的立场：在过去的一个任期里，最常问第一个问题的法官是鲁思·贝德·金斯伯格（Ruth Bader Ginsburg）56-58年“这是她象征性的声明，一句‘我还在这里’”，拉扎鲁斯说，同样令人惊讶的是，特朗普任命的布雷特·卡瓦诺和尼尔·戈尔索91年的投票率只有53%。他说：“他们不是自由主义者，但有很多分裂“这是一个真正在寻找自己的法庭。”

　　Credit: Lorin Granger Professor Jody Freeman served in the White House as Counselor for Energy and Climate Change in 2009-2010, where she was the architect of President Obama’s historic agreement with the auto industry to double fuel efficiency standards, launching the administration’s greenhouse gas program under the Clean Air Act.

　　功劳：2009-2010年，洛林·格兰杰教授乔迪·弗里曼（Jody Freeman）在白宫担任能源和气候变化顾问，她是奥巴马总统与汽车业达成的将燃油效率标准提高一倍的历史性协议的设计师，根据《清洁空气法》启动政府的温室气体计划。

　　Still, certain unresolved cases hold ominous signs for environmentalists. Freeman cited two cases where legal distinctions that favor environmentalists might be redefined.

　　尽管如此，某些悬而未决的案件对环保人士来说仍有不祥的迹象弗里曼列举了两个案例，其中有利于环保主义者的法律区别可能被重新定义。

　　One is the “critical habitat” deemed essential to the survival of a species. In the case of Weyerhaeuser Co. v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, the critical habitat of the endangered dusky gopher frog was designated to include a 1544-acre site that it had not inhabited for decades. The Weyerhaeuser Co. sued over the latter, wanting to use that land for development; the district court and 5th Circuit Court of Appeals both ruled that the no-longer-occupied land was still critical under the Endangered Species Act. In November 2018, the Supreme Court unanimously vacated that decision, issuing a narrow ruling directing the 5th Circuit to weigh the definition of habitat before reviewing a government designation of “critical habitat.”

　　一个是被认为对物种生存至关重要的“关键栖息地”。在Weyerhaeuser Co.诉美国鱼类和野生动物局的案件中，濒危的灰蒙蒙地鼠蛙的关键栖息地被指定包括一个1544英亩的地点，几十年来一直没有人居住。Weyerhaeuser公司就后者提起诉讼，希望将该土地用于开发；地区法院和第五巡回上诉法院均裁定，根据《濒危物种法》，不再占用的土地仍然至关重要2018年11月，最高法院一致撤销了这一决定，发布了一项狭窄的裁决，指示第五巡回法庭在审查政府指定的“关键栖息地”之前，权衡栖息地的定义。

　　Credit: Lorin Granger Richard Lazarus is the Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he teaches environmental law, natural resources law, Supreme Court advocacy, and torts. He has represented the US, state and local governments, and environmental groups in the Supreme Court and is the author of the forthcoming book “The Rule of Five: Making Climate History at the Supreme Court.”

　　功劳：洛林·格兰杰·理查德·拉扎鲁斯是哈佛大学霍华德和凯瑟琳·艾贝尔法学教授，教授环境法、自然资源法、最高法院辩护和侵权法他曾在最高法院代表美国、州和地方政府以及环保组织，并著有即将出版的《五项规则：在最高法院创造气候历史》一书

　　A second case from last term, Sturgeon vs. Frost, dealt with the distinction between public and private land. The case involved the National Park Service—which has a nationwide ban on hovercrafts on waterways in national parks—and a moose hunter named John Sturgeon who sued after he was prohibited from piloting his hovercraft over the Nation River in Alaska’s Yukon Preserve. In its March 2019 ruling, the Supreme Court reversed a Circuit Court ruling, and said that Alaska’s federal park system could not enforce a previous ban on hovercrafts.

　　上学期的第二个案例，鲟鱼与弗罗斯特，讨论了公有土地和私有土地的区别。这起案件涉及国家公园管理局（National Park Service），该局在全国范围内禁止气垫船在国家公园的水道上航行，还有一位名叫约翰·斯特金（John Sturgeon）的麋鹿猎人，他因被禁止在阿拉斯加育空保护区的国家河上驾驶气垫船而提起诉讼。在2019年3月的裁决中，最高法院推翻了巡回法院的裁决，并表示阿拉斯加联邦公园系统无法执行先前对气垫船的禁令。

　　On the surface this was a defeat for environmentalists. But Freeman pointed out the special circumstances here: It was the riverbed, not the conservation land itself, that couldn’t be regulated by the state, since Alaska’s charter doesn’t allow it to control bodies of water as public land. “If Mr. Sturgeon had brought his claim in any other state, he would not have had a prayer of succeeding.” On the other hand, the case still meant that the National Park Service had lost jurisdiction over 18 million acres of nonpublic land in Alaska. “That’s a very significant loss of regulatory power,” said Freeman.

　　从表面上看，这是环保主义者的失败。但是弗里曼指出了这里的特殊情况：由于阿拉斯加的宪章不允许它将水体作为公共土地来控制，所以不能由州来管理的是河床，而不是保护区本身。“如果斯特金先生在任何其他州提出索赔，他都不会祈祷成功。”另一方面，此案仍然意味着国家公园管理局已经失去了对阿拉斯加1800万英亩非公共土地的管辖权。弗里曼说：“这是监管权力的重大损失。”

　　Credit: Lorin Granger

　　信用卡：Lorin Granger

　　Even more concerning, Lazarus said, is the future of the Juliana vs. United States case, filed in 2015 by 21 young plaintiffs against the U.S. government for endangering future generations by creating a fossil fuel-based energy system. Considered the “trial of the century” by many activists, the case was set for hearing last fall before the government intervened; there have since been further delays and it is currently awaiting a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on whether it moves forward to the district court. The ultimate result, Lazarus warned, may not be what environmentalists hope for. “If they rule in favor of the plaintiffs, the Supreme Court is going to take the case, and it will not be good law. This could be raw meat for a lot of justices on the Court, and it won’t be a pretty sight. So be careful what you wish for.”

　　拉扎鲁斯说，更令人担忧的是2015年21名年轻原告针对美国政府提出的“朱利安娜诉美国案”的未来，该案是因为美国政府创建了一个以化石燃料为基础的能源系统，从而危及子孙后代。该案被许多激进分子视为“世纪审判”，去年秋天在政府介入之前就已定下审理日期；此后又有进一步拖延，目前正等待第九巡回上诉法院就是否移交地区法院作出裁决。拉扎鲁斯警告说，最终的结果可能不是环保人士所希望的“如果他们的裁决有利于原告，最高法院将受理此案，这将不是好的法律。对法庭上的许多法官来说，这可能是生肉，但这不会是一个美好的景象所以要小心你的愿望。”

　　Freeman also looked at two upcoming cases with potentially huge environmental impact: County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, which will decide whether the Clean Water Act prohibits the unpermitted discharge of pollutants into groundwater that eventually flows into protected navigable waters; and Atlantic Richfield Co. v. Christian, which will decide whether the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act preempts state litigation seeking cleanup remedies that may conflict with EPA-ordered remedies. Both cases could have a major effect on future environmental enforcement, and could bring long-simmering differences between the Kagan and Gorsuch wings of the Court to a boiling point.

　　弗里曼还研究了两个即将发生的可能对环境造成巨大影响的案例：毛伊郡诉夏威夷野生动物基金会（County of Maui v.Hawaii Wildlife Fund），该基金会将决定《清洁水法》是否禁止未经许可向地下水排放污染物，最终流入受保护的可通航水域；大西洋里奇菲尔德公司诉克里斯蒂安这将决定是否全面的环境反应，赔偿和责任法先发制人的国家诉讼寻求清理补救措施，可能与环保署命令的补救措施相冲突这两起案件都可能对未来的环境执法产生重大影响，并可能使法院卡根和戈尔索两翼之间酝酿已久的分歧达到沸点。

　　For better or worse, she said, the coming term is likely to be more eventful than the past one. “I don’t think it has been a great term for environmental law. You look a little closer and things are much shakier.”

　　不管好坏，她说，下一个学期可能比上一个学期更多事之秋“我不认为这是一个伟大的环境法术语你看得更近一点，事情就更不稳定了。”