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Tuesday round-up

Yesterday the Court heard oral arguments in the six cases collectively known as the greenhouse gas cases, which challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases from stationary sources.  Lyle Denniston covered the oral arguments for this blog, reporting that, “[a]s is so often the case when the Court is closely divided, the vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy loomed as the critical one, and that vote seemed inclined toward the EPA, though with some doubt.”  Other coverage of yesterday’s oral argument comes from Jeremy P. Jacobs of Greenwire, who suggested that the Court “appeared to search . . . for a middle ground,” and from Adam Liptak of The New York Times, who observed that, “[e]ven as the justices differed on the scope of the agency’s authority, . . . they seemed to agree that the case before them was not particularly significant.”  Commentary on the case comes from Doug Kendall at the Constitutional Accountability Center and Justin Pidot at ACSblog.     

The Court also issued orders yesterday from its February 21 Conference.  Lyle Denniston covered those orders for this blog; other coverage comes from Federal Evidence Review, which focuses on the denial of certiorari in the Confrontation Clause case Medina v. Arizona.  And in his Harmless Error column for the Portland Press Herald, Luke Rioux discusses yesterday’s summary disposition of Ford v. United States, the case of an Iowa man who sold heroin to another individual, who then died.  The Court remanded the case to the Eighth Circuit for further consideration in light of last month’s decision in Burrage v. United States, in which the Court limited the circumstances in which a defendant’s sentence can be enhanced under the Controlled Substances Act based on the death or serious injury of an individual to whom the defendant sold drugs.

Briefly:

  • At Democracy 21, Fred Wertheimer lists (and criticizes) the consequences of a decision in McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, in which the Court heard argument in October, striking down the aggregate limits on individual contributions to federal candidates and political parties.

Recommended Citation: Amy Howe, Tuesday round-up, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 25, 2014, 8:45 AM), https://www.scotusblog.com/2014/02/tuesday-round-up-211/