The court revised its opinion in Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency, a 5-4 ruling released Thursday in which the court temporarily blocked an EPA policy requiring “upwind” states to reduce air pollution that travels down to “downwind” states and affects the air quality there.
Gorsuch—and his clerks, who would have helped prepare the opinion—referred five times in his opinion to “nitrous oxide,” which is a greenhouse gas that’s more commonly known as an anesthetic and referred to as “laughing gas.”
The opinion actually meant to refer to “nitrogen oxide,” an air pollutant that the EPA’s policy at issue was aimed at reducing.
The court issued a corrected opinion that fixed the error throughout the ruling, after the mistake gained traction on social media.
The mistake was seized on by critics of the court’s conservative majority, with writer Elie Mystal noting on X, “Remember folks, Neil Gorsuch thinks that he should have the final say on environmental regulations, not the experts at the EPA.”
Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch Burford, previously led the EPA during Ronald Reagan’s presidency. She ultimately resigned from the position after a controversial two-year tenure that included massive budget cuts, slashing regulations and a scandal over the Superfund hazardous waste removal program that led to her being held in contempt of Congress.
In somewhat related news, OSHA regs stand, for the moment, SCOTUS having declined to hear a challenge to their constitutionality. Justice Thomas, however, is chomping at the bit to gut OSHA.
Tossing all the OSHA regs will be a heavy lift, because, in spite of “JC” whining and crying, OSHA regs reduce insurance company claims expense.
In an opinion dissenting from the decision, Thomas wrote that the question of “whether the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s broad authority is consistent with our constitutional structure is undeniably important.”
The Occupational Safety and Health Act “may be the broadest delegation of power to an administrative agency found in the United States Code,” Thomas wrote. “If this far-reaching grant of authority does not impermissibly confer legislative power on an agency, it is hard to imagine what would.”
Somewhat related, Sotomayor is 70. She will be 75 by the end of the next presidential term. She has Type 1 Diabetes and her health is at risk. It is too late now but she needed to step down about two years ago. She means well but it is a dereliction of duty on her part not to have stepped aside.
Maybe, but Type 1 diabetes is a bit different than the multiple cancer issues that RBG had (and when a president tried to coax her to retirement at about a decade older than what Sotomayor is now).
An alternative perspective: The call by several prominent progressive figures for Justice Sotomayor to resign at 69, because of her diabetes, are absolutely tied to ableism and the belief that disabled people are always just a step away from death…
That is ridiculous because it is all inclusive. We are only discussing Sotomayor as she ages. It is a responsible discussion. There is a reality that is fraught with problems having T1D in your 70s.
We vet leaders in all sorts of ways. Talking disabilities and ableism is a copout. People are not irreplaceable.
Life expectancy estimates for individuals with type 1 diabetes in these reports ranged from approximately 65 years of age to 72 years of age. The CDC currently estimates the average US life expectancy is 76.1 years, the lowest figure since 1996.