Supreme Court Rules Against Environmentalists

In a case where environmental groups wanted the courts to direct the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to take specific action to protect federal lands from off-road vehicles, the Supreme Court said no. Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that Congress never intended "pervasive oversight by federal courts over the manner and pace" of BLM compliance. In a nutshell, it's not the court's job to tell the BLM how to do its job.

Understandably, the environmentalists are crestfallen.

Robert Keiter, an environmental law professor at the University of Utah Law School, said the ruling could raise questions about whether a number of broadly worded legal protections for wilderness areas would "prove enforceable in the future ... because of the court's unwillingness to put any teeth" into the congressional mandates. Because of that, the ruling also could have an effect on laws governing national parks, he said.

The SCOTUS ruling will likely have a chilling effect on future attempts by the environmental crowd to get their way through judicial activism.