Philip Anschutz has hosted rightwing justice at resort and stands to benefit if court strips power from federal regulatory agencies
Two days before oral arguments in a US supreme court case set to have a major impact on federal health and environmental regulation, a leading government watchdog called on Neil Gorsuch to recuse himself over close links to a billionaire oil baron who has hosted the rightwing justice at a mountain resort called Eagles Nest for weekends of dove shooting and who stands to benefit from the ruling at hand.
“Not only would overturning Chevron deference strip power from federal agencies, harming their ability to serve everyday Americans – but now, we know billionaire oil baron Philip Anschutz would score big from a favourable ruling by his friend on the high court,” said Caroline Ciccone, president of Accountable.US.
“It’s far past time for these justices to stop putting their billionaire pals over Americans. Recusal from cases where they have glaring conflicts of interest is the very least they can do to restore some semblance of credibility and integrity to our supreme court.”
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But the case has much wider implications because it is thought likely to remove the Chevron deference, a principle named for a 1984 case involving the eponymous oil giant which established that federal agencies have the discretion to issue regulatory rules without congressional approval.
Whooooosh
Nope, no whooosh. I get the argument I’m simply rejecting it. Philip Anschutz isn’t part of this case and the argument being made here is that in order to screw him that we should also cheer some poor fishermen getting screwed.
That’s not justice.
You know that those cases are often fabricated from the start and it’s possible for a billionaire to bring a case in front of the Supreme Court without legally being involved in one? Not saying it’s the case here but him not being directly involved doesn’t mean his not behind the case.
Let’s say the issue before the court is whether the coca-cola company is liable for health issues in some vulnerable group they targeted with advertising for decades. One of the justices on the court is best friends with the CEO of PepsiCo and gets many valuable gifts from them.
Ruling in Coke’s favor wouldn’t put any money in the pockets of the Justice or the Pepsi CEO, but it would still absolutely be a conflict of interest.
Ruling against Coke could also look like it was affected by a conflict of interest because it hurts Pepsi’s main competitor.
There’s no way to win, it looks bad either way. That’s why transparency and recusal are the rule.
Well unless you’re on the Supreme Court. Then I guess the transparency and recusal are just optimistic requests.