Yeah this was kind of annoying. The current rules that were in effect were a good compromise. The Biden administration came in and wanted to regulate as much as a roadside ditch which was ridiculous. Sometimes good will intent leads to really dumb rules that need to be applied and make projects much more difficult.
Supreme Court ruling could chill labor strikes WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered the latest in a series of rulings undercutting organized labor, with some legal experts predicting that the decision will make unions that engage in strikes more vulnerable to lawsuits while others see a more modest impact. An 8-1 ruling on Thursday authored by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett made it easier for companies to sue over strikes that cause certain instances of property damage. The case involved a strike by the union representing truck drivers at a concrete business owned by Japan-based Taiheiyo Cement Corp (5233.T) in Washington state. Some experts viewed the ruling as consistent with the conservative-majority court's history in recent years of restricting union and employee rights. Angela Cornell, a Cornell Law School labor law professor, called it "another decision that undermines the capacity of unions to function." "Weakening the right to strike by making it riskier to exercise means it will reduce the only leverage unions have when negotiating with companies. This, of course, is a big tilt toward business interests and against the collective interests of workers," said Cornell, who joined a brief supporting the union in the case. "The decision is part of a systematic project by the Supreme Court to limit employee collective rights in the name of industrial peace while expanding employer weapons of lockouts and permanent replacements in the name of private property rights and free enterprise," added Indiana University Maurer School of Law labor and employment law professor Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, who also joined a brief backing the union. But according to Harvard Law School professor of labor and industry Benjamin Sachs, if lower courts faithfully apply the reasoning detailed in Barrett's decision then it "won't do much damage to the right to strike." "The court issued a very narrow holding that appears to be limited to the specific facts of a case involving the specific nature of concrete mixing," Sachs said. The court ruled in favor of Glacier Northwest Inc, which sued a local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters after a work stoppage forced the company to discard undelivered concrete. The justices ruled that the company's claims were not preempted by a statute called the National Labor Relations Act on the grounds that the union had failed to take "reasonable precautions" to prevent a foreseeable and imminent harm to the employer's property resulting from the strike. MORE STRIKES The ruling comes at a time of increasing strikes called by U.S. labor unions. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the number of American workers who participated in strikes and similar activities in 2022 increased by nearly 50% compared to the previous year. Cornell said the decision "could chill the recent uptick in collective action by workers" by placing unions at greater risk of facing lawsuits if they go on strike. Dan Altchek, an attorney at the Philadelphia-based firm Saul Ewing who represents employers in labor matters, said the ruling gives employers "a bit of a roadmap" for how to reduce the odds of lawsuits over strike-related property damage from being dismissed. "If and when such lawsuits survive a union's motion to dismiss, the litigation risk for the union resulting from the strike is significantly enhanced," Altchek added. Some experts pointed out that the ruling largely preserved the existing legal scaffolding for deciding labor law preemption cases of this kind. "The court's analysis may have modestly lowered the union-protection threshold in considering applicability or scope of the 'take reasonable precautions' test," said James Brudney, a Fordham University Law School professor of labor and employment law. Brudney called this aspect of the ruling a "relatively minor development" compared to the court's broader decision to leave intact its major framework for analyzing labor disputes of this nature. The Supreme Court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has dealt setbacks to organized labor in key cases in recent years. In 2021, it struck down a California agricultural regulation aimed at helping unions organize workers. In 2018, it ruled that non-members cannot be forced, as they are in certain states, to pay fees to unions representing public employees such as police and teachers that negotiate collective bargaining agreements with employers. Brudney said Thursday's ruling "was not comparable to that broader trendline" of decisions weakening labor unions. West Virginia University College of Law professor Anne Marie Lofaso said, "The case fits into the judicial trend to weaken labor unions by weakening what counts as protected concerted activity." "This was the narrowest analysis that the court could have done to allow the employer to win," Lofaso added. Reporting by John Kruzel in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham https://www.reuters.com/world/us/ex...court-ruling-chills-labor-strikes-2023-06-02/
yeah, that's what some knee jerk critics are saying in response, the reality is that it will likely have virtually no effect of this sort anyway
After reading a couple other outlets it seems to be a very narrow ruling and better than one could hope for with the current composition of the SC.
I know Nina Totenberg is a PROFESSIONAL LIBERAL but she has been sugarcoating & enabling the myth of the 9 for years - these guys are her friends, of course she says "oh it's not that bad AT LEAST FOR NOW" These hacks making you die the death of 1000 cuts is still death at the end of the day.
Speaking as someone who has multiple creeks and ponds on multiple properties...you have no ****ing idea what you are talking about.
I had my boys dig a hole for a 50 galloner in the yard last month - literally a mile from one of the main EPA admin buildings. Got some mosquitofish and some water hyacinths in there now. Maybe if I'm going crazy, some mystery snails inbound. No gestapo yet, but if they come by, hoo boy, I'm going to be ready, thanks @Commodore
Really, what law was this? Because Sackett v. EPA is about an enforcement action that took place in 2004. Read it. It's in there. How did the Biden Administration have any effect at all on this issue? I'm honestly wondering how you came to this understanding that a 2004 enforcement action of the 1972 Clean Water Act is relevant here. The effect of Sackett wasn't just to - unilaterally, on behalf of the court's republican justices - repeal anything done by the Biden Administration, but everything done by every administration dating back to 1972.
I've got a chef buddy who collects snails. Indoor terrarium growing basil and parsley, he throws the yard snails in there until there's a couple of dozen: boom, escargot
I don't do development. I work on public works projects that attempt to retrofit to situations. Jurisdictional streams and wetlands make it very difficult to sometimes improve drainage for existing areas since you either have to mitigate by purchasing credits which is incredibly expensive or do self mitigation which many smaller jurisdictions don't have the ability to regulate. Development is part of our world and I certainly don't support just wiping out large swaths of land that provide good quality of life to our environment, but when I have to help out existing areas that have major drainage issues (in my case), these kind of overregulation makes projects infeasible which means that older subdivisions get ****ed.
Rapanos are the current rules in effect that have been used as guidance as to how wetlands and jurisdictional streams were defined. https://www.epa.gov/cwa-404/2008-rapanos-guidance-and-related-documents-under-cwa-section-404 Back in December of last year local USACE was letting us know that they were going to reinterpret Rapanos which led to a more stringent interpretation since it was first used as the rule of federal determination. The Trump administration tried to deregulate a ton of this and they tried to instill rules in place that were a hell of a lot more development friendly but of course, they got sued and we were back in Rapanos 2008 interpretation. USACE tried to change the definition just late last year and those rules were going to cause more restrictions. The Biden Administration had released even more stringent rules that essentially included even more regulation, however, these rules were never in effect, but it gave us a glimpse of how tightly they wanted to regulate (which is why I mentioned regulating a roadside ditch). I follow this stuff because it's important for me to be knowledgeable for the type of projects I work on. I don't claim to be an environmental expert, which is why I hire environmental consultants to help me, but overall I know enough to help me guide my clients into how expensive their project may be. Considering that I do a lot of work in the gulf coast and the rules Biden administration were proposing were going to further regulate wetlands that weren't even hydraulically connected to the waters of the US, the ruling on this case was concerning. If this case would have not been successful, then it would of paved the way for Biden administration rules to be implemented sometime in the summer. Wetlands are graded for quality and some of these wetlands are trash, yet you had the federal government overreaching trying to regulate these. I felt Rapanos was a good compromise, although from the ruling it definitely will do away with those rules which is why I understand it's a developer win. Ultimately man, developers are going to develop if they believe it's feasible. Feasibility is dependent on how much they will be able to sell this development for. Essentially, if they have to pay to mitigate wetlands or streams, then that cost is passed down to the consumer. For government jobs, it just mean less funding for X project or sometimes it may make it unfeasible and the community gets nothing.
Supreme Court Sides with Company Over Teamster Vandals Dueling headlines give radically different impressions of the same case. https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/supreme-court-sides-with-company-over-teamster-vandals/ excerpt: On the facts, Jackson’s dissent is just bizarre. The notion that, by continuing to let union employees continue working under an expired contract while negotiations continued, the company was asking for them to destroy their equipment out of spite is absurd. Of coursethe union should be liable for the ensuing damages—which the company mitigated considerably by dumping the concrete before it hardened. more at the link
decision in the Jack Daniels dog toy parody case: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-148_3e04.pdf
5-4 ruling (Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the three liberals) to uphold a lower court ruling on the Alabama Congressional gerrymander. Effectively, the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act (and Congress's authority under the fourteenth amendment) which I honestly wasn't expecting. I figured this was their chance to finally gut the whole thing. You can't overstate how big this is. If one of the Conservatives votes the other way, every state in the Deep South is doing mid-year redistricting to wipe out majority-minority districts.
US Supreme Court upholds Native American adoptions law The US Supreme Court has ruled that Native Americans should continue to have preference in adoption or foster care of Native American children. The 7-2 decision preserves the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). It rejects a challenge by a white Texas couple who argued the law was a form of racial discrimination. Native American leaders argued the law helps protect their traditions and cultures. Thursday's ruling was a victory for those tribal leaders and US Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. The lead plaintiffs in the case were Chad and Jennifer Brackeen, a white couple of Fort Worth, Texas. They argued that the ICWA was racially discriminatory, breaching the US Constitution's guarantee of equal protection. The Navajo Nation had objected to the Brackeens' attempt to foster a four-year-old girl after earlier adopting her older half-brother. In supporting briefs to the Supreme Court, hundreds of tribes argued that the ICWA was in the best interests of the child. They said the law treats Native Americans as a political class, rather than a racial group. The ICWA was put in place 45 years ago to address a widely spread practice in the 19th Century by the US government and states of taking children from their Native American families in order to assimilate them into white America. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-65897827
