Trump’s SCOTUS Pick Puts Future of Climate Action, Health Protections at Risk

Washington, D.C. — President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett to serve as a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States — an appointment that will have drastic, lasting, and likely negative impacts on the future of climate action and the health and safety of Americans.

Currently, there are a number of critical cases before the courts that could decide the future of our climate and the health of the people living in the United States. With so much on the line, the country cannot afford to have the Trump administration installing another extreme justice, creating a 6-3 conservative majority that would likely rule against health access and protections in favor of polluters and corporations.

During this administration, the courts have served as the strongest check on Trump’s executive power, blocking many of the most egregious, unlawful, and extreme rollbacks put forward by the administration to gut health, safety, and climate protections. The administration’s attempts to roll back environmental and health safeguards have been defeated or abandoned 69 out of 83 times after the cases were taken to the courts.

“It is a very real threat that Americans’ access to clean air and water could be overturned by a conservative court — putting the health of millions at risk,” said Executive Director of Climate Power 2020 Lori Lodes. “The stakes couldn’t be higher as far too many Americans, often disproportionately Black, Brown, and Indigenous individuals, are already living with and dying from the health consequences of the climate crisis.”