Heavy metals can kill you, carbon monoxide can kill you. Even small amounts of mercury in the air or water can make you sicker than a dog, produce intractable pain, followed by raving insanity, paralysis, and death. And for any Culture of Life lurkers; developing infants in or out of the womb are at even greater risk if exposed to dangerous pollutants.

The health and safety of the environment in which we live is, needless to say, critical to every citizen on earth. Poison does not respect borders, it requires no Visa to travel. Determining a reasonable balance between protecting that biome for all its inhabitants, human or otherwise, and providing the life saving and enriching benefits of technology to mankind, is not always an easy call. We need careful, objective analysis from science to begin to make any progress on that front. The problem is there are groups of all kinds that have a powerful incentive to corrupt the collection, analysis, and dissemination of data anyway they can. Right-wing think-tanks, scientific oversight and regulatory boards manned by ideologues, pseudoscientific nonsense, all of it can muddy the picture and be used by the powerful at the expense of the working class.

The game is and always has been rigged in favor of the powerful throughout recorded history. But in our system of governance, the so-called 'little guy' has two trump cards: The Judiciary and Congress. We can vote for (or against) politicians that do not serve our interests, and the last defense for the common man is our courts. Both these checks have served the majority of the people reasonably well for over two hundred years. Do we really want to risk giving someone a shot at changing them both?

Alito's record does not include many cases that deal directly with environmental issues. But for the first time since the nomination of Robert Bork in 1987, several major environmental groups have issued statements opposing his appointment to the Supreme Court. The key concern usually revolves around the Commerce Clause which governs the power of Congress to regulate Interstate Commerce:

[Link] [The] Sierra Club's opposition to Judge Alito's confirmation rests on his Constitutional philosophy as expressed in opinions that threaten both the ability of Congress to pass laws to protect the environment, and the ability of citizens to enforce those laws.

In U. S. v. Rybar, Alito argued that Congress had no authority to restrict firearms, including machine guns, based mostly on his narrow interpretation of the Commerce Clause. That alone is cause for worry among environmentalists, because the Commerce Clause is the foundation for pretty much every federal environmental law in the US. If the Congress doesn't have the power to regulate one type of commerce in Alito's view, what might that mean for other kinds of commerce?

Does the Clean Air Act apply to any businesses or groups? If an industry greatly exceeds limits on dangerous substances mandated by Federal Law and dumps them into a river -- one that flows into another state before unloading its deadly chemical cargo -- can they be shut down or fined for violating the Clean Water Act? Can a citizen seek redress and damages from a large company owned power plant or a factory that poisons their water or air, causing disease or death?

If the Commerce power is restricted, as Alito would have, the validity of many environmental protection laws would be in danger as the "nexus to commerce" would not be clear in his cramped view.

If the Congress has no authority to regulate interstate polluters (or anything else), who does? Based on Alito's apparent willingness to grant the executive branch the status of King, the fear is that he will grease the way for the White House to extend the scope of their power even further, or leave it to local state legislators.

Indeed; in the few environmental cases Alito has been involved with as a judge, he sided with the alleged environmental law breakers about eighty percent of the time. In several of those, Alito engaged in, what looks to my untrained eye, hints of what may be an ominous modus operandi in other decisions; throwing the cases out, not even allowing them before a jury.

A Supreme Court Justice can act as a double whammy for environmental groups. They directly opine on cases and set precedent at the highest level. And they can simultaneously undermine Congressional power on any interstate matter, leaving even more decisions in the hands of the Bush Administration (If you can stand the thought of that) or local businessmen, simply by interpreting the Commerce Cause as they see fit. And hey, if democrats happen to take back Capitol Hill or the White House, the Court can just 'interpret' that ole Commerce Clause anyway they wish. The court already has, shall we say, one or two borderline fringe types in residence. Shuffling Alito into an already stacked deck of right wing Justices could well end up being a terrible idea.

Combine an ultra extreme view of the Commerce Clause with some other wacky right wing legal nonsense on Con Law, and environmental concerns could end up being the least of our worries. We might just end up turning the US into BorkWorld. Where the constitution can be superseded by state law (at the arbitrary discretion of the SCOTUS of course).

That would be a fun place, huh? States could outlaw Catholicism, deny women or minorities the right to vote, crank up the slave trade, legalize child labor, and sell crack over the counter to teenagers; and no law the Congress passes would apply locally, if the SCOTUS didn't go along.