Environmentalism in the Balance

摘要

During the oral argument in Department of Transportation v. Public Citizen in 2004, Justice Stephen Breyer, brushing back a correction by the counsel for the environmental respondents, quipped, "You're against bad environment. All right. We're all against that." But, if we're all against a bad environment, why has the Supreme Court rejected environmentalist positions in many of its decisions, limiting protections and distancing itself from the values and beliefs that have animated the movement? From my cultural analysis of environmental cases, the story may be discouraging for environmentalists. In a number of the cases I examine, the Court rejected or questioned the urgent priority for environmental concerns that was the movement's motivating force. As an example, although it reached a proenvironment result in TVA v. Hill, the snail darter case, the Court insinuated its view that saving an obscure species of "little fish" at the expense of a virtually completed dam was not sensible.