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Monday, June 22, 2009

Courts - SCOTUS releases three of final ten opinions this morning [Updated]

Details to follow - one was the voting rights case (Court did not strike down - opinion here) and another was the Coeur Alaska case (opinion here).

Check SCOTUSBlog for the most up-to-date info.

[More] From Reuters, by James Vicini, a story headed "Miner Coeur gets OK to dump waste into Alaska lake." Some quotes:

The Corps of Engineers, not the federal Environmental Protection Agency, has the authority to permit the slurry discharge, and the Corps acted in accordance with the law in issuing the discharge permit to Coeur, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the Supreme Court's majority opinion. * * *

Both Coeur and the state of Alaska appealed to the Supreme Court. The federal government supported their appeals.

Environmentalists argued that modern mines had never been allowed to dump tailings into lakes, and the appeals court ruling confirmed a rule of law in place for more than 30 years.

Writing for the six-member court majority, Kennedy said deference must be given to the reasonable decision by the Corps of Engineers.

Justices John Paul Stevens, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented.

Officials at Earthjustice, one of three environmental groups involved in the case, expressed disappointment over the ruling.

"The Clean Water Act was intended to halt the practice of using lakes, rivers, and streams as waste dumps," said Tom Waldo, who argued the case. "Today's decision does not achieve these purposes."

The officials said the Bush administration rule giving the Corps of Engineers authority in such matters had reversed thirty years of successful regulation under the Clean Water Act. They urged President Barack Obama to act immediately to repeal the rule.

See also "Court OKs dumping gold mine waste in lake" by H. Josef Herbert of AP.

Joan Biskupic of USAToday has a long story that begins: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to decide whether a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is constitutional, sidestepping by an 8-1 vote the dilemma at the heart of a closely watched case."

The third decision is the focus of this AP story by Jesse J. Holland, headed "Court says public must pay for private special ed." The story begins:

The Supreme Court has ruled that parents of special education students who opt for private school instead of trying the public system cannot be barred from seeking public reimbursement for their tuition costs.

The court ruled 6-3 Monday in favor of a teenage boy from Oregon whose parents sought to force their local public school district to pay the $5,200 a month it cost to send their son to a private school.

The opinion is Forest Grove School District v. T. A. (08-305).

Posted by Marcia Oddi on June 22, 2009 10:16 AM
Posted to Courts in general