VICTORY IN THE SENATE! MYERS CONFIRMATION DENIED!

July 20, 3:30 p.m.

I'm putting this P.S. at the beginning of this entry, instead of after it.  I just received the following announcement from Earthjustice, letting us know that Myers nomination for appellate judge for the Ninth Circuit was NOT confirmed.  This is great news, and thanks to any of you who contacted your senators about this.  We CAN make a difference!

Washington DC-- Today the U.S. Senate blocked the confirmation of President Bush’s most anti-environmental judicial nominee to date, attorney William G. Myers III, who had been nominated to a lifetime seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The effort to cut off debate and force a vote on this controversial and divisive nomination, which requires 60 votes, failed by a vote of 44 to 53.

Myers is the first nominee opposed by Senators primarily on environmental grounds, and the first to be formally opposed by Native American groups. As an activist lawyer and lobbyist for the mining and beef industries, and later as the top lawyer at the Interior Department, Myers launched sweeping attacks against fundamental environmental protections such as the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act.

“As his actions as Interior Solicitor demonstrate, Mr. Myers sees nothing wrong with using public office to advance his personal agenda, which happens to match that of the mining and beef industries who employed him for most of his career,” said Buck Parker, Executive Director of Earthjustice. “Fortunately, a sufficient number of Senators saw through the Bush administration’s attempt to turn an anti-environmental activist into a lifetime federal judge.”

As a Ninth Circuit judge, Myers would have the power to turn his pro-industry ideology into legal precedents governing nine Western states that contain nearly three-quarters of our public lands. From his seat on the bench, Myers would effectively have been able to rewrite the laws protecting these states, and undermine these laws’ effectiveness across the rest of the country.

“The only thing that distinguishes William Myers’ record is the very thing that should disqualify him from serving on this court: his unjustified attacks on safeguards for the environment,” said Glenn Sugameli, Senior Legislative Counsel at Earthjustice. “With more than 180 groups from across the political spectrum opposed to Myers’ nomination, it is unconscionable that the Senate’s Republican leadership would try to shoehorn such a controversial nominee into one of our most important courts.”

The Senate has already confirmed more than 200 of the Bush administration’s lifetime nominees to our federal courts, most of whom were not opposed by environmental or other groups. William Myers is a prime example of the handful of extremist nominees that have failed to sail through the Senate, due to their records of judicial activism, personal agendas, and far-from-the-mainstream viewpoints on the law.

“Earthjustice applauds the forty-four Senators who successfully opposed the effort today to divide the American people and force a vote on this controversial nominee to the federal bench,” added Parker. “Their constituents who care about clean water, clean air, public health, and public lands should be aware of the importance of this vote.”

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Another alert here, for those of you who read this tonight or early tomorrow.  The Reps are bringing perhaps the worst judicial nominee of the Bush regime up for a vote tomorrow in the Senate.  Read about this sterling example of everything most abhorrent in this administration's attitude to the planet we live on.  Please take action via the link at the bottom of the page, send this on to others who might care - if you have time tomorrow give your Senators' DC offices a call to let your actual voice be heard.  If put into office this guy could be influencing environmental policy for the rest of our lifetimes. 

BUSH GREENWATCH, July 19, 2004

Frist Triggers Senate Battle Today Over Controversial Circuit Court Nominee

Apparently determined to set off one more high-visibility battle over a controversial judicial nomination, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), set the stage for a debate today and a floor vote tomorrow on a nominee whose extreme anti-environmental record will be the focus of the debate.

William G. Myers III, formerly a top lobbyist for the beef and mining industries, has been nominated by President Bush for a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. Perhaps the nation's most significant appeals court when it comes to environmental precedents, the 9th Circuit covers nine western states which include some 489 million acres of federal public lands.

After serving two years as the solicitor (top lawyer) for President Bush's Interior Department, Myers stepped down amid a departmental investigation of his allegedly giving illegal favors to a politically connected Wyoming rancher. [1]

Myers, who has never participated in a jury trial, nor been a judge at any level, was rated "not qualified" by over one-third of the American Bar Association's standing committee on the federal judiciary. Not one member gave him a "well qualified" rating. [2] Myers is opposed by an unprecedented coalition of some 180 tribal leaders, conservation groups, labor and civil rights organizations. For the first time in its 68-year history, the conservative National Wildlife Federation chose to oppose a president's judicial nominee.

The reasons for such intense opposition are not hard to find. Myers has argued in court that the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act are unconstitutional, and that there is no constitutional basis for the U.S. government to protect wetlands. He has compared management of the public's federal lands to "the tyrannical actions of King George in levying taxes" on the American colonies. [3]

In one of his two formal opinions as solicitor at Interior, Myers argued that the Bureau of Land Management does not have the authority to prevent undue degradation of public lands resulting from mining operations.

Tex Hall, chairman of the National Congress of American Indians, wrote last March in the Billings (Montana) Gazette that Myers "orchestrated a rollback of protections for sacred native sites on public lands, although such places have been central to the free exercise of religion for many American Indians for centuries." [4] This was a case in which Myers interpreted a federal statute to favor the mining industry at the expense of Native Americans, despite specific Congressional language to prevent undue damage to public land.

Newspaper editorials in the western states covered by the Ninth Circuit have been less than enthusiastic. Myers' hometown [Boise] Idaho Statesman said Myers "sounds less like an attorney and more like an apologist for his old friends in the cattle industry." [5]

In an editorial entitled "Unfit to Judge," Tucson's Arizona Daily Star asserted that "Myers' chief qualification for the job rests not in his legal acumen but in the fact that his anti-environmental views match those of the president." The Star went on to describe Myers as "a person who sees no connection between environmental policy and the health of the nation's natural resources." [6]

The San Francisco Chronicle was more blunt: "One of President Bush's worst nominations" with a "long record of ideological extremism" and "open hostility to environmental protection." [7]

When a Myers article warning that "environmentalists...are bent on stopping human activity whenever it may promote health, safety, and welfare" was noted in his Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) reminded Myers that "the cases you were discussing" involved logging on national forests, racial discrimination in the siting of waste treatment plants, and protection of irrigation canals from toxic chemicals." [8]

The Idaho Statesman may have caught the spirit of President Bush's choice best when it quoted John Falen, former president of the Nevada Cattlemen's Association: "Bill's our friend," said Falen. "It's been a long time since we had a friend in the solicitor's office." [9]

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TAKE ACTION
Urge your Senators to oppose William Myers' lifetime nomination through Earthjustice.

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SOURCES:
[1] Hartford Advocates, Oct. 16, 2003.
[2] Boston Globe, Mar. 22, 2004.
[3] San Jose Mercury News, Mar. 25, 2004.
[4] Billings Gazette, Mar. 7, 2004.
[5] Idaho Statesman, Nov. 22, 2004.
[6] Arizona Daily Star, Mar. 23, 2004.
[7] San Francisco Chronicle, Mar. 24, 2004.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Idaho Statesman, Nov. 22, 2004.