US Supreme Court chief John Roberts takes aim at Neil Gorsuch’s “evocative” claims in EPA case

The US Supreme Court today decided a case that pitted 98 property owners in the toxic towns of Opportunity and Crackerville, Montana against the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO). The matter apparently also put chief justice John Roberts at odds with his fellow conservative, Neil Gorsuch. The justices sparred in dueling opinions over the notion of “paternalistic central planning,” a formulation Gorsuch used in his dissent and one that suggested his colleagues in the majority were practically communists or—almost as loathsome—socialists. Roberts, for his part, defended a centralized approach to environmental cleanups under federal law and evidently resented his colleague’s claims...MORE