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Roe demise shows conservative Supreme Court wants to move ‘very far and very fast’

It was clear a Supreme Court with six conservative justices was going to move to the right. It just wasn’t clear how far it would go or how fast.

On Friday, the picture came into focus as the high court’s supermajority issued a landmark decision erasing the nearly 50-year-old constitutional right to abortion by overturning Roe v. Wade.

A day earlier, the court enshrined a right to carry a handgun in a ruling striking down New York’s concealed carry permit law. Earlier in the week, it issued another ruling expanding religious liberty.  

The decisions, which drew scorn from the court’s three liberals, represented a giant leap for the conservative cause, offering the clearest sign yet of just how aggressively the six Republican-appointed justices are willing to drive the Supreme Court to the right. 

The shockwaves also underscore just how much the court has shifted since Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blocked President Obama’s final pick from making it to the court, and then quickly pushed through three nominations from President Trump.

And the decisions suggest the court doesn’t want to waste time.

“The 6-3 majority feel that they have a narrow window to do all the things important to the conservative legal movement,” said Robert Tsai, a law professor at Boston University. “You never know when the window will close and so they are acting with urgency.”

This week marked a breakthrough moment for the conservative legal movement’s well-funded and norm-shattering effort to groom a generation of conservative lawyers, elevate reliable allies to the Supreme Court and reshape American life in fundamental ways.

For decades, Roe v. Wade had been in conservative crosshairs, with Republican Party elites seizing on the issue of abortion to unify social conservatives and evangelical Christians. Friday’s toppling of the landmark 1973 ruling marked a crowning achievement that left abortion opponents electrified.

“Today, Life Won,” said former Vice President Mike Pence, who campaigned as Trump’s running mate in 2016 on the promise to end the federal right to abortion. “By overturning Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court of the United States has given the American people a new beginning for life and I commend the Justices in the majority for having the courage of their convictions.”

But the decision, which most Americans said they would oppose, also ignited a political firestorm as the dismantlement of abortion rights began to unfold in states within hours of the ruling. As women across the country find themselves barred from terminate an unwanted pregnancy, court watchers said, public confidence in the Supreme Court that is already at historic lows is likely to sink further.

“I think that the sense that court consists of Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, is accurate and growing,” said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Cornell University.

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe effectively handed states the authority to drastically limit or ban abortion. More than two dozen states, primarily in the South and Midwest, are expected to tighten abortion access as a result, including 13 with “trigger bans” that were set to take effect automatically or through minimal effort by state officials. 

The court’s liberal trio of Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, in a blistering 66-page dissent, condemned their conservative colleagues.

“With sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent,” they wrote.

The court’s conservatives sent mixed messages Friday about how broadly their actions might be going forward.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito emphasized that his ruling was narrowly aimed at abortion. He insisted the decision would not threaten protections for same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), sex between gay couples (Lawrence v. Texas) or the right to contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). 

But Justice Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion, wrote that the reasoning underlying Friday’s opinion should call those other decisions into question. Thomas has long rejected the well-established principle that the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment protects not only procedural safeguards but also substantive rights.

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” Thomas wrote. “Because any substantive due process decision is demonstrably erroneous, we have a duty to correct the error established in those precedents.”

Legal experts said the ruling raised legitimate questions about whether rights that are seen as having a thin historical record and which are not explicitly referenced in the Constitution — so-called “unenumerated rights” — remained on firm footing after Friday’s decision.

Just a day earlier, Thomas wrote the majority opinion striking down a New York state law that made it difficult to obtain a permit to carry a handgun outside the home.

The ruling broke along ideological lines, with the court’s six conservatives joining Thomas, who wrote that the Second Amendment protects “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

That decision will almost certainly render unconstitutional similar restrictions in more than a half dozen other states and could hamper efforts to pass modern gun control measures.

“This is an enormously broad opinion with regard to Second Amendment methodology,” said Joseph Blocher, a law professor at Duke University.

“Here, the majority has essentially rejected the approach unanimously adopted by the federal courts of appeals in favor of a hyper-originalist focus on whether contemporary gun laws are, in the court’s view, consistent with tradition,” he said. “And that is a big, big change.”

Earlier this week, the justices in another 6-3 vote struck down a Maine education policy that made schools with religious instruction ineligible for taxpayer-backed tuition aid. The ruling continued the conservative majority court’s general trend of ruling for religious interests.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, held that a tuition fund program that is available to secular schools must also be made available to religious schools.

Sotomayor, the Supreme Court’s most outspoken liberal, accused the court’s conservatives in a dissent of “dismantling” the barrier between church and state.

Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University, said the decision had far-reaching implications for religious liberty rights. Prior to Tuesday’s ruling, she said, a state choosing not to fund a religious organization was generally considered a lawful form of neutrality.

“Now, inaction counts as discrimination,” she said. “This idea developed 30 years ago — that not funding religion is a form of discrimination against religion. It’s taken a while for that idea to get traction, and it’s now the law of the land.”

As the nation reckoned with a country undergoing transformational changes at the hands of six life-tenured judges, some longtime court watchers said this week was a stark illustration of a Supreme Court aggressively pursuing conservative agenda items.

“The decisions this week must be understood as a conservative majority favoring conservative political ideology: requiring aid for religious instruction, greatly expanding gun rights, ending abortion rights,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law.

“It is not about judicial philosophy or constitutional interpretation,” he said. “It is about conservatives moving constitutional law very far and very fast in a very conservative direction.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Maxine Waters on SCOTUS abortion ruling: 'The hell with the Supreme Court'

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) declared “the hell with the Supreme Court” after its justices ruled on Friday to eliminate federal-level abortion protections, overturning a 50-year precedent.

“This turnout here?” asked Waters, who stood near fencing that was installed in front of the high court. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Women are going to control their bodies no matter how they try and stop [us]. The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.”

“Women will be in control of their bodies, and if they think Black women are intimidated or afraid, they got another thought coming,” she continued. “Black women will be out in droves. We will be out by the thousands. We will be out by the millions. We’re going to make sure we fight for the right to control our own bodies.”

The Supreme Court issued its most consequential decision of its term on Friday when it overturned Roe v. Wade. 

The decision was mourned by Democrats, fearful of how it could impact abortion access in states across the country, including those with so-called trigger laws already on the books, while Republicans celebrated the move.

Some prosecutors have already said they do not plan on enforcing abortion bans, while a group of West Coast states announced a commitment to protecting abortion access.

Meanwhile, a group of states have already started the process of officially ending abortion access or severely restricting it in states like Missouri, Louisiana, South Dakota and Arkansas.

Source: TEST FEED1

Abortion is banned or severely restricted in these states

The Supreme Court issued the biggest decision of its term on Friday when it overturned Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion. 

The decision came more than a month after a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicated that the high court planned to overturn the 1973 landmark decision. Opponents of abortion rights celebrated while those in favor of access to the procedure despaired over what a post-Roe future will look like.

With the decision on how to regulate abortion left to the states, a patchwork of laws is emerging as some states move to ban or limit abortion while others rush to create additional protections for people who perform or obtain the procedure.

It is expected that abortion could be banned or severely restricted in about half the states.

More than a dozen states had “trigger” laws in place before the Friday ruling, designed to ban or seriously restrict abortion as soon as Roe was overturned. Some of those bans have already gone into effect, while others are likely to become effective in a matter of days or weeks. 

Here are the states that have already banned or restricted abortion:

June 24

Missouri

Missouri became among the first states to effectively end abortions when state Attorney General Eric Schmitt (R) “triggered” legislation banning the medical procedure by issuing an opinion certifying Roe had been overturned just hours after the Supreme Court ruling.

Louisiana

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) confirmed that its trigger law went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. According to the text of that legislation, one of the circumstances in which the law goes into effect is if the Supreme Court partly or fully reverses the 1973 landmark decision, which would give states the authority over whether to allow the medical procedure. 

South Dakota

South Dakota’s trigger law became effective on Friday. Text from the state’s legislation notes the trigger ban becomes effect the same day that the Supreme Court gives states the rights to choose abortion enforcement policies. 

Kentucky

Kentucky’s trigger law went into effect on Friday, with the legislation’s text noting that it could become effective immediately should Roe v. Wade be partly or fully reversed by the Supreme Court. 

Oklahoma

Oklahoma is now enforcing its abortion ban after Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor (R) certified to top officials in the state and its legislature that Roe v. Wade had been overturned by the high court. He notified officials that they would be allowed to begin enforcing its trigger law.

Ohio

Ohio’s abortion ban is now law after a court dissolved an injunction against the legislation. 

Arkansas

Arkansas initiated its trigger law after state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge (R) certified following the Supreme Court’s decision that it had overturned Roe v. Wade. 

Source: TEST FEED1

US, four others launch initiative aimed at supporting priorities of the Pacific islands

The United States and four other countries on Friday announced an initiative aimed at supporting the priorities of the Pacific Islands region.

The initiative, called the Partners in the Pacific Blue, is comprised of five countries: the U.S., Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, all of which sent representatives to meet alongside other nations on Thursday and Friday. 

Goals of the initiative include engaging more regularly with Pacific governments, encouraging and facilitating “great engagement with the Pacific by any other partner that shares the Pacific’s values” and further supporting the priorities of the region that are “in line with the Pacific Islands Forum’s upcoming 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent,” according to the joint statement.

“This new initiative builds on our longstanding commitment to the region,” the countries said.

“We are united in our shared determination to support a region that benefits the peoples of the Pacific. We are also united in how we realize this vision—according to principles of Pacific regionalism, sovereignty, transparency, accountability, and most of all, led and guided by the Pacific Islands,” the added later.

The agreement comes as China has sought to boost links to nations in the area and expand its influence.

It also comes about a month after the president unveiled an economic framework specific to the Indo-Pacific region meant to focus on climate change, supply chains and trade, among others. The countries included as a part of that framework include New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

Source: TEST FEED1

DHS warns in memo of ‘likely’ violent extremism following Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade: reports

The intelligence branch of the Department of Homeland Security is warning officials on Friday of what it says is the likelihood of domestic violent extremism in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling that eliminates federal-level abortion protections, multiple news outlets reported.

The department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis reportedly sent a memo to law enforcement, private sector partners, first responders and others that was obtained by Axios and CNN.

The DHS memo warned that government officials, including judges, were at the greatest risk of violent extremism following the Supreme Court’s decision, while noting that faith-based organizations and reproductive health care centers were also at risk, Axios noted. 

With some states in the process of undergoing changes to abortion protections, the memo noted that states for multiple weeks could face threats of violent extremism, according to Axios.

“Americans’ freedom of speech and right to peacefully protest are fundamental Constitutional rights. Those rights do not extend to violence and other illegal activity,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. 

“DHS will continue working with our partners across every level of government to share timely information and to support law enforcement efforts to keep our communities safe.” 

The department in a memo last month, which was first reported by Axios and obtained by The Hill, warned of violent threats following the publication of the leaked draft opinion indicating the court was poised to overturn the constitutional right to an abortion. The memo said those threats were likely to continue and could grow in number.

Following that leak, some protested outside of the homes of some Supreme Court justices, which was criticized by Republicans and some Democrats. 

Earlier this month, a man who told authorities he wanted to kill conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s home. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Women of color react to SCOTUS decision overturning abortion rights

Linda Goler Blount was just a child in 1973 when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Roe v. Wade, legalizing access to abortion for women nationwide. 

“Women know how to take care of themselves,” said her mother, a kindergarten teacher and member of the National Negro Business and Professional Women’s Club.

On Friday, these memories came rushing back to Blount as she read the news: the conservative-majority Supreme Court had overruled the right for women to “take care of themselves.” 

Blount was, ironically, at the gynecologist when the news broke. As she looked around the doctor’s office, all she could think was, “What’s going to happen to the women in this room with me?”

“There’s been a generation of young women and children who are being given the very clear message that their lives aren’t worth anything, that they can be trusted to make the best decisions for their health,” Blount said. 

Women of color across the country have found themselves flooded with disbelief, anger and fear since news of the 6-3 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Black women are three to four times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications and twice as likely to lose an infant to premature death. In 2019, Hispanic mothers were 80 percent more likely to receive late or no prenatal care compared to white mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

While the Biden administration on Friday released a new plan to fight the maternal health crisis, a study released by Duke University in December showed that a complete abortion ban could increase Black maternal deaths by 33 percent and nationwide by 21 percent.

So Blount, the executive director of the Black Women’s Health Initiative, said she’s concerned not only for women who look like her, but for all people who can get pregnant. 

“We’re going to lose a lot of women,” said Blount. “A lot of Black women and Brown women, but a lot of white women, too. Women are going to die in childbirth, and they’re going to die because some may try to induce their own abortions. Some will die because of underlying health conditions that will not be able to be addressed so they’ll have to carry a baby to term which will raise their risk for maternal mortality.”

But, she argued, the people who are pushing for the end to abortion rights aren’t interested in heaing the statistics. Instead, the conversations are happening in an “echo chamber.”

“We’re talking to each other, but the people who need to hear this and understand the repercussions of their decisions aren’t interested and they’re not listening,” she said.

The overturning of the nearly 50 year right to an abortion has been met with backlash from leaders and organizations across the country. 

The NAACP blasted the court’s decision as an “egregious assault on basic human rights” while the Congressional Black Caucus demanded Biden declare a national emergency. And Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.),  Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust, released an “outraged” statement condemning the decision.

“Black women, marginalized women, low-income women and rural women will bear the brunt of this,” Kelly said. “However, this is an attack on the personal freedom and bodily autonomy of every single person living in the United States.”

Lupe Rodriguez, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, said Friday was a “dark day” that left millions of women feeling a lot of grief and pain.

“We have existed with structural inequities in health care access for forever,” she said. “So many of our communities, even before this court case, did not have true access to reproductive health care.”

With a presence in states around the country, including Texas, New York, Virginia and D.C., Rodriguez said she and her team have been mobilizing and preparing for the court’s decision since Texas passed a trigger law last year. 

But it was laws like Texas’s that left so many women unsurprised by Friday’s ruling. 

Alicia Garza, principal of the Black to the Future Action Fund, was in the middle of a workout when her trainer suddenly gasped and relayed the news. 

“When I heard the news that the decision had finally been announced, [I] wasn’t shocked but it was like the pit of my stomach dropped,” Garza said.

She said her team had been preparing for this moment since the leak of the Supreme Court draft opinion a few weeks ago. 

The end to abortion rights, Garza said, impacts Black families in a myriad of ways — and the vigilante clauses in some states’ laws is one of the most concerning.  

Vigilante clauses encourage private citizens to file civil lawsuits against people they believe to have violated the abortion ban. 

“Just like Black communities are disproportionately impacted by a lack of access to quality and affordable health care, Black communities are also disproportionately impacted by criminalization and targeted for this kind of vigilantism and surveillance,” Garza argued. 

That criminalization, Rodriguez said, could lead to Black and Brown families having their children taken away, losing their livelihoods and being imprisoned. 

Still, for some women, the overturning of abortion rights has opened the door for offering pro-life options to Black and Brown women. 

Cherilyn Holloway, founder of Pro-Black Pro-Life, said her heart grieves for the women who feel they are being attacked and their rights stripped away. However, she also said she feels a sense of responsibility to her community now.

“I feel an overwhelming sense of responsibility and opportunity to do more work in these communities to uplift the Black woman in a way that she feels liberated through the community that’s around her and not through the shedding of future generations,” Holloway said.

Holloway said her organization focuses on community and letting women, especially Black women, know that abortion is not their only option.

“The idea that more Black women are going to die because our maternal mortality rate is so high … we’re not saving more Black women by allowing them to have abortions,” said Holloway. “No Black women should be dying in childbirth.”

That’s why she’s focused on combating systemic inequities, like implicit bias in the medical community and economic inequity.

But for Blount, these issues could be addressed without limiting a person’s right to choose. 

Blount said the strategy has to be “state-by-state.” Providing resources for women in states that have outlawed abortions to travel to ones where the procedure is still legal is critical, she said.

The Black Women’s Health Imperative will also look to directly supply resources to women in need — specifically it’s looking to stockpile up to 700,000 doses of Plan B and medical abortions. 

Meanwhile, Rodriguez and her team at the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice are sharing pertinent information about what rights women still have. She said they’ll also continue pushing for legislation that promises reproductive freedom. 

“We will change the power structures that have brought us to this moment and our communities are going to take over this power and will give us all the rights we deserve,” she said.

The Black to the Future Action Fund is also mobilizing its volunteers and supporters. But Garza added they’re also just trying to create space for people to express how they’re feeling and what they want to see happen. 

All of this, she concluded, is to help determine who to vote in – and out – come November. 

“We’re gonna get to decide who signs the bills in our states,” said Garza. “We get to do an audit of all the people who represent us and make decisions on our behalf and we get to look and see which one of these people is going to fight like hell to protect [our] healthcare. Anybody who doesn’t make that list is going to have to find another job after November.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Supreme Court's abortion ruling is watershed moment

The Supreme Court’s extraordinary decision to eliminate the universal right to abortion is a watershed moment in the American experiment, ending half a century when women were free to make their own reproductive decisions and immediately ushering in an era when states can make that choice for them.

From a practical standpoint, the court’s decision is an earthquake, one that is already leading to the creation of a checkerboard legal system in which blue states continue allowing the procedure and red states apply new restrictions or outright bans. 

Politically speaking, however, the battle going forward will look much the same as it’s been, pitting pro-choice liberals against anti-abortion conservatives in a cultural cagematch to determine the fate and form of reproductive rights across the country. 

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of Friday’s decision, Democrats are already vowing to codify abortion protections into law — same as they’ve done for decades — while Republicans are pledging to build on their momentous victory with new designs on an old goal: to ban the procedure nationwide.

The dichotomy was reflected on a microcosmic scale outside the Supreme Court on Friday morning, where a crowd of hundreds, then thousands, quickly formed following the unveiling of the decision — a spontaneous celebration/protest that turned First Street NE, which separates the Court from the Capitol, into a human parking lot.

It was a study in contrasts. Depending on your perspective, it was a day of either jubilation or sadness — a reason to dance in the streets or to scream out loud. 

Abortion opponents have fought to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that established the constitutional right to abortion, since the day it came down in 1973. They formed a euphoric scene outside the Court, featuring music and bubbles, hugs and tears of joy.

“I’ve never been this happy, I think, in my entire life,” said A.J. Hurley, director of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, who was in town from Los Angeles in anticipation of the decision.

For abortion rights defenders, who had carved out their own space in front of the Court, it was a moment of focused anger. The ruling, they said, was a violation of bodily autonomy — “Women are not incubators,” they chanted — and many vowed to simply ignore the decision. 

“I will aid and abet abortion,” read one popular sign.

Claire Qian, from Lexington, Ky., had a personal reason to be there protesting Roe’s repeal. Her mother, she said, had two abortions, the first for financial reasons and the second because of medical complications. 

“If she had had the kid, she would have died,” Qian, 20, said. “And I remember she was sobbing, she was a wreck. It wasn’t an easy decision at all — she was emotionally in turmoil for a while. But it was necessary, because she has a right to live as well.”

Qian’s sign told the tale: “My Mother’s Abortion Saved Her Life.”

Abortion opponents, of course, have a much different view, with many arguing that life begins at conception and therefore terminating a pregnancy is the equivalent of murder. 

“For 50 years in this country the government has thought it’s OK to kill children because of your size and where you’re located,” Hurley said. 

Many abortion foes had been leery of Donald Trump and his crude brand of politics but supported him nonetheless for the opportunity to transform the Supreme Court. It was a gamble that was validated this week: Trump seated three Justices in the course of four years, all of whom voted to overturn Roe. Victory in hand, opponents of abortion are now planning to take their activism to those states where abortion will remain legal. 

“This is just the beginning,” said Kristin Turner, head of Pro-Life San Francisco. 

While emotions were high on both sides Friday —  leading to a few face-to-face shouting matches — there appeared to be no violent confrontations, as the two sides remained largely separated throughout the day. Huge numbers of Capitol Police were on hand just in case.  

Kristin Tobaben Smith, 47, an ESL teacher visiting from Denver, Colo., was on the Metro with her two daughters when someone told her to avoid the Supreme Court because of the demonstration. Instead, the trio made a beeline toward it.

“I’ve been to these before. The first one I went to I was young, I was in college. And I was fighting for my rights as a woman to make choices, but now it’s even more important for me because I have two daughters,” said Tobaben Smith. “And for them to make choices on how they take care of their bodies is for them to make, not the government.”

Her younger daughter, 11-year-old Claire, shared similar thoughts. 

“I feel like the U.S. government is not being very kind to women, because they’re taking away a lot of rights from them,” she said. “It’s supposed to be a free country, but then people are taking all the girls’ rights to either have a child, or not to have a child. And it’s sad because it’s their bodies.”

Friday’s decision, while explosive, was also expected. Politico had published a draft ruling last month that proved to be largely in line with the final decision. 

Still, for abortion rights supporters, knowing the outcome in advance did little to dull their emotions when the ruling was made official. 

“I literally started shaking with anger,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs, a 33-year-old California Democrat. “As a young woman, and one of the few women of reproductive age in Congress, this decision feels very personal. Because it’s five radical judges saying that they know more about the health care decisions that I need to make about my body than I do.”

The Supreme Court’s decision to repeal Roe comes on the heels of a pair of rulings to expand religious freedoms and extend gun rights, and the three combined have added to the controversy swirling around a Court that’s already seen its public standing plummet in recent years.

Roe is historically popular, with public opinion polls indicating for decades that less than a third of the country supports its repeal. Given those figures, some Democrats are accusing the Court — or at least the Republicans who secured the conservative majority — of ignoring the will of voters. 

“There is no democracy — there is no freedom — if women cannot make decisions about their own health care, including reproductive health care,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.). “It’s a disgraceful decision.”

Adding to the controversy, several of the Trump-appointed justices had indicated during their confirmation hearings that, not only were they committed to the long-held legal doctrine of honoring precedent, but that Roe — which has weathered numerous challenges over the years — was among those decisions. Some are now questioning whether to take the Court seriously at all. 

“It’s clear that the Supreme Court has no legitimacy left with the American people,” said Jacobs, “and that they are overturning the will of people across the country.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Energy & Environment — Climate regulations could be next in court crosshairs

The Supreme Court will soon rule on a major climate case. We’ll look at some of the potential ramifications.

Also, a new study finds that air pollution may help predict peoples’ chances of dying from heart attack and stroke, and climate change is worsening wildfires.

This is Overnight Energy & Environment, your source for the latest news focused on energy, the environment and beyond. For The Hill, we’re Rachel Frazin and Zack Budryk.  Subscribe here. 

After abortion case, Supreme Court to rule on climate

Climate regulation could be the next Democratic priority in the Supreme Court’s crosshairs after a contentious ruling Friday that gutted abortion rights.

• The court is expected soon to rule on a case that has major implications on how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can issue climate regulations for power plants, and what powers it has to do so.
• Experts say that if the court rules in favor of those seeking to curb the EPA’s powers, it could stunt the agency’s ability to prevent climate change from worsening.

“The more tools the court takes away from the EPA, under the Clean Air Act to address greenhouse gas emissions, the harder it’s going to be for the United States to do an effective job of contributing to the world’s efforts to limit climate change,” said Robert Glicksman, an environmental law professor at George Washington University.

A refresher on the case: The court in February heard arguments focusing on the scope of the EPA’s powers to regulate climate change.

• The case was brought by plaintiffs including West Virginia who seek to prevent the EPA from having broad powers to reshape the country’s electric power system. 
• The plaintiffs are seeking to preemptively block the Biden administration from setting standards that would induce a shift away from coal plants and towards those powered by cleaner energy sources.

West Virginia has argued the EPA is limited to only setting restrictions on individual power plants. While it may sound technical, experts say the distinction could have major implications for how much planet-warming carbon dioxide ends up in the air.

• William Buzbee, a law professor at Georgetown University, said that if the court limits the EPA to regulations within a physical power plant, it would likely result in tons more planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted overall.
• He said that giving the EPA broad powers would enable it to use strategies like emissions trading and shifting toward cleaner energy sources that are already being used by power companies to cut planet-warming emissions.

“A broad interpretation of EPA power would set national standards based on the ‘best systems’ used by the most effective pollution-reducing power companies, requiring the same for all power plants,” Buzbee said.

Read our full preview of the decision at TheHill.com this weekend.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS 

• Next week, the Interior Department is expected to reveal its plans for offshore drilling. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said during a May hearing that the department will propose a 5-year offshore drilling plan by June 30. It’s not currently clear what the administration’s five-year plan will look like, but offshore drilling is a contentious issue for industry and environmentalists alike.  
• Next week the administration is also expected to hold several oil and gas lease sales on public lands – the first onshore sales of the Biden administration.  

Can air pollution exposure help predict death risk?

A new study finds that environmental factors such as air pollution may help predict people’s chances of dying from conditions like heart attack and stroke.

• Exposure to above-average levels of outdoor air pollution increased risk of death by 20 percent and increased risk of death from cardiovascular disease specifically by 17 percent, the survey published in PLoS One on Friday found.
• The use of wood- or kerosene-burning stoves for cooking and heat homes without proper ventilation increased death risk by 23 percent and 9 percent respectively — raising the specific risk of death by cardiovascular disease by 36 percent and 19 percent, the study determined.

How’d they get there? To arrive at these figures, researchers from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai combed through personal and environmental health data from 50,045 rural villagers in northeast Iran.

• All study participants — most of whom were poor residents of Iran’s Golestan region — were over the age of 40 and agreed to have their health monitored during annual visits that began as far back as 2004, the researchers said.
• Within the group, there were more than 2,700 cardiovascular deaths and 6,000 all-cause deaths during a 10-year follow-up period, according to the study. 

Using data from NASA alongside geographical information systems technologies, the researchers mapped out eight environmental risk factors across Golestan: fine particulate pollution; household cooking, heating and ventilation; proximity to traffic; distances from sites that perform coronary intervention; socioeconomics; population density; land type; and nighttime brightness. 

The scientists determined which environmental factors posed the most threat by combining them into a single model and controlling for interactions between them, lead author Michael Hadley, a fellow in cardiology and incoming assistant professor of medicine at Mount Sinai, explained in a statement. 

Read more from The Hill’s Sharon Udasin. 

Climate change fueling fires faster than predicted

Federal officials say climate change is intensifying droughts, leading to wildfires far worse than experts or models have predicted. 

• Why it’s important: This is adding to the danger that accompanies one of the U.S. Forest Service’s primary methods of mitigation: the prescribed burn. 
• What officials are saying: “Fires are outpacing our models,” Forest Service Chief Randy Moore said in a statement this week.

Moore pointed to escalating climate conditions as the reason why an otherwise routine prescribed burn in New Mexico earlier this year escaped to ignite the largest wildfire in state history.

• “Climate change is leading to conditions on the ground we have never encountered,” he said. 

The Forest Service and most of the scientific community views prescribed burns as a key element in protecting the wildfire-dependent landscapes of the West from the most destructive conflagrations.

• The agency said in a report that its personnel followed a prescribed burn plan in New Mexico and the burn conditions appeared to be within approved limits to keep it from escaping.
• But persistent drought — which a study in Nature in February called the worst in 1,200 years — has complicated that picture. 

“The first year of the drought isn’t that bad, the forests still have some humidity and energy left,” said Marc Castellnou, a fire scientist in Spain’s Catalonia region who consults frequently on fires in the U.S. West.

Read more from The Hill’s Saul Elbein.

UPCOMING HEARINGS

Tuesday

• The House Appropriations Committee will mark up budget legislation for the Energy Department and other agencies.  

Wednesday

• The House Appropriations Committee will mark up budget legislation for the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency 

Thursday

• The House Energy and Commerce Committee will hold a hearing on recycling 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Consultants for Florida utility covertly monitored journalist after critical coverage (The Orlando Sentinel and Floodlight) 
• Biden’s Inner Circle Debates Future of Offshore Drilling (The New York Times) 
• Germany looking at repurposing unused Nord Stream 2 pipeline for LNG use –report (Reuters) 
• Keystone XL Pipeline gets renewed interest, but the company has moved on (NPR) 
• Google’s Plan for 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Ran Into Headwinds in 2021 (The Wall Street Journal) 

⛳️ Lighter click: The Hill’s photos of the week

And finally, something offbeat and off-beat: Nnnnnope. 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Energy & Environment page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you on Monday.  

VIEW THE FULL EDITION HERE

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Hillicon Valley — Roe reversal renews data privacy calls

The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade has led Democrats to push for action on proposals to protect Americans seeking abortions from being targeted with their personal data.

In other news, a California-based crypto firm announced on Thursday night that hackers stole $100 million worth of cryptocurrency.

This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar, Chris Mills Rodrigo and Ines Kagubare. Subscribe here.

Abortion ruling spurs push for data privacy

Supporters of proposals to protect data that could provide information about people seeking abortions are pushing for swift action after the Supreme Court’s Friday decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

• Democrats are weighing responses to the 6-3 court decision that will trigger abortion bans in 13 states, and likely lead to severe restrictions in others.
• Supporters of key data privacy proposals said it is urgent to ensure Americans’ location, search and call data isn’t used to target people seeking abortions.

“We need to make sure that we in Congress are doing everything we can to protect people’s most sensitive and personal data, their reproductive and sexual health data, so that it can’t be used against them, especially in the states that are going to be criminalizing abortion,” said Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), the lead House sponsor of a bill aimed at protecting reproductive health data. 

Without additional protections, users’ location, search and calling data can be easily accessed and shared with law enforcement in ways that could be used to target people seeking abortions, especially in states that ban or severely restrict the procedure.

Read more here. 

Hackers make off with $100 million in crypto

Harmony, a California-based crypto firm, announced on Thursday night that hackers have stolen $100 million worth of cryptocurrency from one of its blockchain bridges. 

• The company said on Twitter that it has partnered up with law enforcement and forensic specialists to try to identify the hackers and retrieve the stolen funds.
• “Harmony is working around the clock as we continue our investigation alongside the FBI and multiple cyber security firms,” the company tweeted. 

In a blog post, the company said its team has attempted to reach out to the hacker with an embedded message sent to the culprit’s crypto wallet address. 

The theft is the latest crypto hack to occur in the last two months.

Read more here. 

NEW BILL TO RESTRICT DATA PURCHASE OF US CITIZENS

A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday unveiled legislation aimed at restricting the ability of foreign adversaries to purchase data about American citizens. 

• The Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Surveillance Act would direct the Commerce secretary to identify kinds of personal data that could harm national security if exported. 
• The agency would then determine which countries are “low risk” and which are “high risk.”

Low-risk countries would be allowed to import data without restrictions, while high-risk ones would see exports of data be presumptively denied.

All other countries would require license for bulk exports of data identified as potentially harmful.

Read more here

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: Affordable Connectivity Program needs permanent funding 

Notable links from around the web: 

Video game industry on the end of Roe: I’m ‘not proud to be an American’ (The Washington Post / Teddy Amenabar) 

Ads Are Officially Coming to Netflix. Here’s What That Means for You (TIME / Megan McCluskey)  

Wall Street Banks Quietly Test Cyber Defenses at Treasury’s Direction (Bloomberg / Christopher Condon and Craig Torres) 

📍 Clickable: Where abortion stands in states after Roe

One more thing: Netflix layoffs

Netflix has laid off 300 employees in a second round of layoffs after letting go 150 workers last month as the company tries to cut costs amid a downturn in revenue growth.

A Netflix spokesperson confirmed the layoffs to The Hill on Thursday, saying the company is continuing to “significantly” invest in its business but needed to make the move to ensure costs are growing in line with the slower revenue growth. 

“We are so grateful for everything they have done for Netflix and are working hard to support them through this difficult transition,” the spokesperson said of the laid-off employees in a statement.  

Read more here.

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you next week.

VIEW THE FULL EDITION HERE

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