Experts Brace For Environmental Law Attacks Due To Healthcare Ruling

摘要

Legal experts are expecting a host of new constitutional challenges to environmental laws in the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision holding that the individual mandate in President Obama's healthcare law violates the Constitution's Commerce Clause, though most experts doubt whether Commerce Clause suits will ultimately succeed. The high court ruling "reshapes jurisprudence" under the Commerce Clause, the basis for most environmental laws, as well as the Necessary and Proper clauses, "in fresh and uncertain ways," and has the potential to "reverberate" in federal environmental health and welfare statutes, Widener University law professor James May told an Environmental Law Institute (ELI) forum on the health care ruling's impact on environmental law July 31.