1nc — quarters st marks

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Environmentalist calls to protect resources grease the wheels of neoliberalism by
creating new market innovations, while eliding the fundamental problem at the heart
of capitalist production.
Nikula '17 [Ilari; 8/6/17; PhD Researcher in Social and Economic Geography at the University of
Lapland; "Neoliberal Environmentalism,"
http://web.isanet.org/Web/Conferences/HKU2017-s/Archive/ceb6c473-5cb9-4308-9e23-
efe6157f7785.pdf]

Connections between neoliberalism, environmental change, and environmental politics are all deeply if
not inextricably interwoven. Neoliberalism and modern environmentalism have together emerged as the
most serious political and ideological foundations of the last five decades of social regulation.

The applying of the perception of environment-in-crisis in different contexts was shown to have a
strong tendency of increasing neoliberal forms of governing. The invocation of ecological crisis, limits,
finiteness, labeling carbon dioxide as a harmful pollutant has led, through such concepts as
sustainability and green economy, to a wholesale commodification of life ready to be regulated and
controlled within the neoliberal system. The real or presumed ecological crisis drives a new round of
capitalist accumulation and structures of neoliberal governance. Particularly important here is the
conception of finiteness of the world, which allows neoliberalism to reach its economic rationalities into
whole new spheres.

Markets and ecosystem services are the dominant approach to managing and protecting the
environment. This move to commodify nature and market its ‘services’ is a massive transformation of
the human–environment relationship. Arguably, neoliberal environmental strategies have been quite
successful. The hegemony of neoliberalism is made most evident by the ways in which profoundly
political and ideological projects have successfully masqueraded as a set of objective, natural, and
technocratic truisms (McCarthy & Prudham 2004, 276). Capital appears to have successfully established a
dominant articulation with other logics, incorporating the naturalized authority of scientific data into its
own arguments, and lobbying for laws which stabilize its new markets. Jessop (2008) stresses that considerable
work has been put into the process of articulation: that is, making information from one logical realm
legible to, and effective in, others. Thus, when ecological phenomena factor into the stabilization or destabilization of capital
relations, they never do so as ecological phenomena per se. They do so only after going through a process of coding by which they are made
legible to the logic of capital. (Robertson 2004, 366, 371.)

The way environmental institutions have paved the way for certain “solutions” and chosen to blunt the
potentials for alternative developments. As an example, Mueller and Passadakis (2009, 58-59) provide the international climate
negotiations of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), and carbon trading. They criticize the UNFCCC, firstly, of
insulating the free-trade policies of the WTO from scrutiny; secondly, of legitimating the economic and regulatory system by channeling the
attention of potentially critical environmental groups into “meaningless negotiations”; thirdly, of blunting the potential for more widespread
mass movements for climate justice to emerge; and fourthly and most importantly, of its promotion of carbon trading schemes. Without the
UNFCCC, the idea of emissions trading would almost certainly not have become global ‘best practice’ in official climate politics as quickly or as
universally as it now has (ibid., 59). As one World Bank executive stated, "[i]n a world where you have scarcity, you have to have a price on
things" (Simon 2012).

Ecocentrically aligned writers like Mueller and Passadakis (2009; 2010), Parr (2009), Crawford (2009), and Bachram (2004) point
that the top-down managerialist solutions provided by the global institutions are – from the ecocentric
perspective – “false solutions,” as they provide a political shield for the continued production of
greenhouse gases “with impunity” (Mueller and Passadakis 2010, 563), but do not address the real problem: the
underlying structures of production. Their environmental value seems very limited. Not benefiting the environmental or climate
as they supposedly should. Instead, they seem more to be about securing and expanding the neoliberal economic
structures of governing.

The institutions and practices that neoliberalism demands are driven under the guise of saving the
‘environment.’ Reid (2012a, 70) observes that invoking ecological crisis has “strategically […] functioned in the
global expansion of neoliberalism by naturalising its frameworks of governance.” The idea of
environmental crisis enables profound neoliberalizings trends that would otherwise be hard to
implement and justify. Instead, they are now seen to have a world-saving function. As Parr (2015, 72) phrased it:
“All roads currently lead us through the gates of capitalist heaven.

How we have come to this? Several researcher wonder the fast pace of the emergence of these neoliberal governance frameworks (Lövbrand &
Stripple 2011, 197). Few ideas on how to understand this neoliberal environmentalism has been presented. According to one perspective,
neoliberal thinking has hijacked environmental politics (Parr 2009, Mirowski 2013?). This idea necessitates that in some point in history they
were on opposition to each other. Instead, a historical examination of these both sets of ideas might reveal a more interesting relation. Both,
modern environmentalism and neoliberalism, began to emerge in the late 1960’s. Many link the actual
institutionalization of neoliberalism to the period since the early 1970s. It is primarily during this period that neoliberal
practices were introduced as macro and micro-level reforms (Heynen et al. 2007, 6). Zižek (2009) points that the
transformation of capitalism towards caring for ecology started in the late 1960’s. The emergence of
neoliberalism was allied by the rise of the political influence of environmentalism. The basis for all these
neoliberal ‘financial innovations’ has been in the idea of the ‘global environment’ that the UN gave birth to around the 1972 UN Environment
Conference in Stockholm. Hironaka (2015) explains this in length. TheStockholm era represents an episode of social
construction that fundamentally changed the way that modern environmental problems were
understood. It gave us the concept of ‘global environment’ where the nature around us is understood
as one interconnected wholeness, scarce, and in a crisis. This new conception of the environment
linked a formerly diverse set of issues under a common umbrella and reframed them as global
concerns. After the conference ‘the environment’ became a common factor to describe problems of different relations between man and
nature. (Hironaka 2015.) The point that Hironaka makes is that the creation and growth of the global environmental
regime has been neither inevitable, or natural, but has been shaped by politics in international
institutions, mainly by the UN (Hironaka 2015).

Here, it is important to note that the basis for the neoliberalizicing opportunities of the ecological crisis waere
[were] already created with the cognitive construction of global ‘environment’ and its central features:
understanding of natural resources at static, the idea on limits, and the urgent crisis. The
representation of and acting upon a phenomenon constitutes two sides of the same coin. Objects can
only be governed when they are represented and conceptualised in a way that can enter the sphere of
conscious political calculation (Lövbrand 2009, 11). Is environmentalism a perfect side-kick or partner-in-crime for neoliberalism’s
project, a cognitive instrument for neoliberalism. While environmentalism uses ecological reasons to argue for the
need to protect and manage the life of the global environment, neoliberalism prescribes economy as
the very means of that protection and management.

Capitalism is unsustainable and locks in planetary extinction.

Foster '19 [John Bellamy; 2/1/19; Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, PhD in Political
Science from York University, President and Board Member of the Monthly Review; "Capitalism Has
Failed—What Next?" https://monthlyreview.org/2019/02/01/capitalism-has-failed-what-next/]
The Anthropocene epoch, first ushered in by the Great Acceleration of the world economy immediately after the Second World War,
has generated enormous rifts in planetary boundaries, extending from climate change to ocean
acidification, to the sixth extinction, to disruption of the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, to the
loss of freshwater, to the disappearance of forests, to widespread toxic-chemical and radioactive
pollution.36 It is now estimated that 60 percent of the world’s wildlife vertebrate population (including mammals, reptiles,
amphibians, birds, and fish) have been wiped out since 1970 , while the worldwide abundance of invertebrates has declined by 45
percent in recent decades.37 What climatologist James Hansen calls the “species exterminations” resulting from
accelerating climate change and rapidly shifting climate zones are only compounding this general process of
biodiversity loss. Biologists expect that half of all species will be facing extinction by the end of the century.38

If present climate-change trends continue, the “global carbon budget” associated with a 2°C increase in average
global temperature will be broken in sixteen years (while a 1.5°C increase in global average temperature —
staying beneath which is the key to long-term stabilization of the climate—will be reached in a decade). Earth
System scientists warn that the world is now perilously close to a Hothouse Earth, in which catastrophic
climate change will be locked in and irreversible.39 The ecological, social, and economic costs to
humanity of continuing to increase carbon emissions by 2.0 percent a year as in recent decades (rising in 2018 by 2.7 percent—3.4 percent
in the United States), and failing to meet the minimal 3.0 percent annual reductions in emissions currently needed to avoid a
catastrophic destabilization of the earth’s energy balance, are simply incalculable.40

Nevertheless, major energy corporations continue to lie about climate change, promoting and bankrolling
climate denialism—while admitting the truth in their internal documents. These corporations are
working to accelerate the extraction and production of fossil fuels, including the dirtiest, most greenhouse gas-
generating varieties, reaping enormous profits in the process. The melting of the Arctic ice from global warming is seen
by capital as a new El Dorado, opening up massive additional oil and gas reserves to be exploited without regard to
the consequences for the earth’s climate. In response to scientific reports on climate change, Exxon Mobil declared that it
intends to extract and sell all of the fossil-fuel reserves at its disposal.41 Energy corporations continue to intervene in
climate negotiations to ensure that any agreements to limit carbon emissions are defanged. Capitalist
countries across the board are putting the accumulation of wealth for a few above combatting climate
destabilization, threatening the very future of humanity.

Capitalism is best understood as a competitive class-based mode of production and exchange geared to
the accumulation of capital through the exploitation of workers’ labor power and the private
appropriation of surplus value (value generated beyond the costs of the workers’ own reproduction). The mode of
economic accounting intrinsic to capitalism designates as a value-generating good or service anything
that passes through the market and therefore produces income. It follows that the greater part of the
social and environmental costs of production outside the market are excluded in this form of valuation
and are treated as mere negative “externalities,” unrelated to the capitalist economy itself—whether in terms
of the shortening and degradation of human life or the destruction of the natural environment. As environmental economist K. William Kapp
stated, “capitalism must be regarded as an economy of unpaid costs.”42

We have now reached a point in the twenty-first century in which the externalities of this irrational system,
such as the costs of war, the depletion of natural resources, the waste of human lives, and the
disruption of the planetary environment, now far exceed any future economic benefits that capitalism
offers to society as a whole. The accumulation of capital and the amassing of wealth are increasingly occurring
at the expense of an irrevocable rift in the social and environmental conditions governing human life on
earth.43
The alternative is to reject the plan in favor of commitment to organizing anti-
capitalist international revolution.
Tavan '21 [Luca; 3/7/21; writer for Red Flag; "Worldwide revolution is possible and necessary,"
https://redflag.org.au/article/worldwide-revolution-possible-and-necessary/]

In 2011, a poor Tunisian street vendor set himself alight to protest against police harassment. Within days, his act
had inspired anti-government protests across the country. Within weeks, the protests escalated into a
regional revolt that challenged regimes across the Arab world. One small act tapped into resentment
against inequality, unemployment and state violence that engulfed an entire region. The radical wave
spread even further: at a massive demonstration against an anti-union bill in the US city of Madison, Wisconsin,
a man held up a poster with a picture of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak beside Republican Governor Scott Walker. The caption read: “One
dictator down. One to go”. The Arab revolutions went on to inspire the Occupy movement, which spread to
more than 80 countries.

Today, more than ever, insurgent social movements and working-class uprisings are spurring action in
other parts of the world—from Hong Kong to Chile, from Lebanon to France. One placard at a memorial for protesters murdered while
resisting the military coup in Myanmar took up Marx’s incitement: “Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains”.

While the Russian Revolution is cynically held up by capitalist ideologists as the ultimate argument against
international revolution, it actually proves the opposite. It shows that the goal is not only necessary, but also
that it’s possible. The news of workers seizing power in Russia, overthrowing their capitalist government and
declaring their withdrawal from WWI, created shock waves across the planet. Workers in Germany rose in
revolt a year later, ending the war for good and building soviets, a form of radical working-class democracy inspired by the Russian
example. This was followed by uprisings in France, Italy and Hungary.

The revolutionary wave spread further. A classified British government report from 1919 noted a “very
widespread feeling among workers that thrones have become anachronisms, and that the Soviet may
be the best form of Government for a democracy”.
The rising tide of radicalism had an impact in Australia too. Meatworkers in the Queensland city of Townsville donned red jumpers, stormed the
local police station to free jailed unionists, and placed the city under workers’ control. The editor of the conservative Townsville Daily Bulletin
lamented: “Townsville for the last year or so has been developing Bolshevism ... the mob management of affairs in this city, differs very little,
from the Petrograd and Moscow brand”.

The Russian Bolsheviks, the revolutionary working-class party that led the revolution to victory in 1917, didn’t just passively
wait for revolutions elsewhere. They actively organised to spread the revolt. In 1919, they established the
Communist International, an organisation for debate, discussion and coordination between different
revolutionary workers’ parties. Revolutionaries in Russia, Italy, France, Germany, the US, Australia and elsewhere attempted to
clarify and develop a strategy for overthrowing capitalism everywhere. In none of these countries was there a party like
the Bolsheviks, steeled in years of organising working-class struggle to overthrow the state, and capable of leading a revolution. But for a
number of years, workers came close to overthrowing capitalism in several countries.

In periods of stability, when social conservatism dominates, international revolution can seem like a
pipe dream. Defenders of the status quo actively work to reinforce this illusion. But history proves that
the crises that the system generates are international, and that they will inevitably provoke
international resistance.
Capitalism is a global system. It requires a global movement to tear it up, root and branch. But it also makes
global revolution more possible, and more likely. The most important thing that socialists can do, whether you live
in Hong Kong or France, Myanmar or Australia, is to get stuck into organising for it today.
 OFF
Protection means to command a cessation of use.
Johanna Matanich (Spring, 1996). ARTICLE: A Treaty Comes of Age for the Ancient Ones: Implications
of the Law of the Sea for the Regulation of Whaling. International Legal Perspectives, 8, 37, lexis
UNCLOS imposes a duty upon states to conserve whales that is stronger than their obligations under the International Whaling Convention.
Generally, UNCLOS creates the obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment in article 192. This
obligation applies to all living resources. Beyond that Article 65 asks states to "co-operate with a view to the conservation of marine mammals."

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties establishes rules for the interpretation of treaties. UNCLOS is to be interpreted "in good faith in
accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of [their] object and purpose."
What then, does the term "conservation" mean? Generally, there
is little difference between the use of the terms
"conservation"and "preservation." In the context of environmental protection, however, conservation
connotes a conservative use of a resource, but a use nonetheless, while the term "protection" is used to
command a cessation of use. Indeed, the term "conservation" is used in UNCLOS article 64 to characterize the regulation of active
fisheries. Because conservation is associated with use in that article, it is logical to assume the UNCLOS drafters associated the term
conservation with "use" in Article 65. The word "protection" was used in an early draft of the article, then deleted, [*60] which provides
further support for this conclusion.

Violation — changing CAFO’s permitting doesn’t cease use of water resources.

Voting neg for limits and ground — it outweighs precision — there are infinite ways to
affect water or prevent threats to it — their interp allows hundreds of non-point
source pollution affs and small tweaks to regulation — err neg on a massive topic with
unlimited mechanisms.
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The fifty states and relevant sub-federal territories should uniformly:
— Repeal any legislation that prohibits regulation of Concentrated Animal Feeding
Operations
— Increase pre-discharge permitting and monitoring of CAFOs
— Enter into compacts with tribes to bar the creation of new CAFOs
— Strictly regulate antibiotic use in agriculture
— Substantially fund initiatives for domestic preparedness, including testing,
contact tracing, isolating, and clear risk communication
— Engage in multilateral forums for response and prevention.

States solve CAFOs best.

Kulkarni 19 [Madhavi Kulkarni, JD Candidate, William & Mary Law School, 2020; Editor-in-Chief,
William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review, Volume 44; BA Economics, Rutgers University,
2017, summa cum laude. Out Of Sight, But Not Out Of Mind: Reevaluating The Role Of Federalism In
Adequately Regulating Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations. William & Mary Environmental Law &
Policy Review, Vol. 44:285, 2019]

Against a meager federal backdrop , states have to shoulder the responsibility of picking up the
environmental slack. Because limited funds and resources may prohibit a significant increase in inspections
and en-forcement actions under a federal inter-region compact, state legislatures and agencies must take
advantage of their ability to impose additional requirements on CAFOs. While it may be the case that a single state
agency controls the implementation and enforcement of regulations re-garding CAFOs, sometimes this responsibility is delegated to more than
one state agency. 14 6 In this case, a cross-agency accountability system, similar to the inter-region compact at the federal level, may
incentivize these agencies to work together better. States are also more
likely to be motivated to enact stricter laws,
given that they are more directly im-pacted by the activities that occur at CAFOs within the state. It is
often easier for individuals to reach their state governments than to reach the federal government, so
state governments will most directly interact with those adversely affected by CAFOs .4

States can enter compacts with tribes.

Brenda Erickson 14, Kae Warnock, National Conference of State Legislatures, 6-8-2014, Oldest
Wayback Machine Snapshot, "Separation of Powers: State-Tribal Relations and Interstate Compacts,"
https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/separation-of-powers-tribal-interstate-
relations.aspx, Accessed 8-11-2021, LR
Native American tribal governments are sovereign, self-governing entities. Much like state governments, tribal governments are responsible
for the health, safety and welfare of their citizens and their communities. Tribal sovereignty pre-dates the formation of the United States and is
Tribal governments are on equal
recognized through the U.S. Constitution and numerous federal statutes and court cases.
footing with state government and have a government-to-government relationship with federal government. The sovereignty of
each entity necessitates a government-to-government relationship at the state and tribal levels as well.

States and tribes have adjacent jurisdictions, with some tribes crossing into the boundaries of more than
one state. These bordering jurisdictions are a key reason why state-tribal relationships are necessary . In addition,
services are now provided by tribal government to members and non-members who reside on or near the reservations. This makes
coordination between state and tribal agencies and service providers essential. There also is an increasing desire to ensure that services
provided to tribal members through state programs are culturally-competent in order to increase effectiveness. Finally, tribal citizens are
also citizens of the state in which they reside. State legislators have a responsibility to provide for the well-
being of all state citizens, tribal and non-tribal alike. The health and well-being of tribal citizens and tribal communities enhance the
overall health of a state. In short, strong tribes contribute to strong states.

Intergovernmental agreements and state-tribal compacts are one tool in promoting positive state-tribal relationships and
fostering collaborative policy development. There are many policy issues and aspects of Indian law that require a high
degree of state-tribal cooperation. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), taxation, public safety, emergency response and criminal
jurisdiction and law enforcement are some of the key areas that can benefit from formalized agreements. Much as
interstate agreements allow for government-to-government cooperation , state-tribal agreements
accomplish the same end. This type of state-tribal cooperation allows the parties to tailor policy solutions to local
situations while respecting state and tribal sovereignty. Consultation and cooperation through the
agreement/compact negotiation and formation process can help policymakers avoid legislation that produces unintended
consequences and spare the parties the potential costs of litigation.

Solves disease.
Burwell ’20 — Sylvia Matthew Burwell, President of American University, chief of staff to the secretary
of the treasury, and special assistant to the director of the National Economic Council; (October 2020;
“Improving Pandemic Preparedness: Lessons From COVID-19”; Council on Foreign Relations;
https://www.cfr.org/report/pandemic-preparedness-lessons-COVID-19// //LFS—JCM)

The Task Force presents its findings grouped into three sections: the inevitability of pandemics and the logic
of preparedness; an assessment of the global response to COVID-19, including the performance of the World Health
Organization (WHO), multilateral forums, and the main international legal agreement governing pandemic disease;
and the performance of the United States, while also drawing lessons from other countries, including several whose
outcomes contrast favorably with the U.S. experience.
Preparation can mitigate the effects of pandemics.

Pandemics are not random events. Outbreaks of well-known infections and new diseases occur regularly. These outbreaks can spread easily on
this interconnected planet and impose significant human and economic costs, making preparedness imperative. Since the 1990s, successive
U.S. administrations, as well as other governments and international organizations, have acknowledged this reality. In the United States, this
recognition has been reflected in multiple national security strategies and intelligence assessments, blue-ribbon commissions, and simulation
exercises that anticipated many of the challenges the world encountered in 2020.

 The Task Force finds that U.S. and global efforts to prepare for the inevitability of pandemics provided
the illusion—but not the reality—of preparedness. Despite a succession of previous global public health emergencies, the
United States and other governments failed to invest adequately in prevention, detection, and
response capabilities to protect the populations most vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks, or to fulfill their
multilateral obligations to international organizations and to one another. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare these
failures in global and U.S. domestic preparedness and implementation, exposing important lessons that had
not been learned, critical initiatives left unfunded, and solemn obligations that had not been met.
 The Task Force finds that early action and investment in preparedness have mattered in this pandemic. In the
early stages, a diverse group of nations was prepared to respond rapidly and aggressively to COVID-19 with public health
fundamentals, including testing, contact tracing, isolating, and clear, science-based risk
communication to the public. Others, including the United States, were not.
<<<END OF LIST>>>
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The United States, through a strictly limited and singular constitutional convention
called for by at least thirty-four of the States and ratified by at least thirty-eight of the
States, should substantially increase its pre-discharge permitting and monitoring of
Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in the United States because doing so
furthers the purposes of the Clean Water Act.

The convention should be limited exclusively to this issue and no state should ratify
proposals for additional constitutional changes.
Solves and avoids politics.
Elving 18 [Ron; March 1; Senior Editor and Correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR; NRP,
“Repeal the Second Amendment? That’s Not So Simple. Here’s What It Would Take,”
https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/589397317/repeal-the-second-amendment-thats-not-so-simple-here-
s-what-it-would-take]

A new Constitutional Convention?

If all this seems daunting, as it should, there

is one alternative for changing the Constitution. That is the calling of a
Constitutional Convention. This, too, is found in Article V of the Constitution and allows for a new convention to
bypass Congress and address issues of amendment on its own.

To exist with this authority, the new convention would need to be called for by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

So if 34states saw fit, they could convene their delegations and start writing amendments. Some believe such a
convention would have the power to rewrite the entire 1787 Constitution, if it saw fit. Others say it would and should be limited
to specific issues or targets, such as term limits or balancing the budget — or changing the campaign-finance system or restricting the
individual rights of gun owners.

There have been calls for an "Article V convention" from prominent figures on the left as well as the right. But
there are those on both sides of the partisan divide who regard the entire proposition as suspect, if not frightening.

One way or another, any changes made by such a powerful convention would need to be ratified by three-fourths of the
states — just like amendments that might come from Congress.
 OFF
The EPA is focused on prosecuting environmental crimes now, BUT resources and
focus are key.
Volkov 21 (Michael, CEO of The Volkov Law Group, J.D., former federal prosecutor with over 30 years’
experience, “Environmental Crime Enforcement: Button Up for an Increase in Criminal Investigations
and Compliance Demands,” JD Supra, 4/12/21, https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/environmental-
crime-enforcement-button-2933913/, ccm)

The Biden Administration has a number of enforcement

priorities. While not listed as a primary objective, the Justice
Department and the EPA can be expected to increase criminal enforcement of environmental laws.
DOJ’s Environmental Crimes Section (ECS) has had a steady enforcement record but has suffered political ups and downs depending on the
political leanings of the administration in power. The critical issue is usually the budget resources allocated for EPA
staffing and DOJ resources.
ECS is staffed with around 45 prosecutors who lead their own criminal investigations and work with AUSAs in ninety-four districts. ECS
prosecutes cases involving violations of ecological and wildlife resources support. A typical crime involves discharge of hazardous chemicals or
the killing of protected species such as a bald eagle. The cases involving wildlife are investigated by Special Agents of the Fish and Wildlife
Service or other investigative partners.

EPA has approximately 300 special agents assigned to environmental criminal investigations. These
numbers fluctuate with budget amounts . EPA targets cases involving (1) human health and environmental
impacts (e.g. death, serious injury, human exposure, remediation); (2) release and discharge characteristics (e.g. hazardous
or toxic pollutants); and (3) subject characteristics, e.g. national corporation and/or repeat violator).

With the increasing focus on environmental protection and regulation, criminal cases will increase.
Organizations subject to environmental regulations and facing environmental risks will be targeted for
investigation and prosecution.

The environmental statutes contain significant criminal fines and imprisonment. Some of the statutes,
Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, and R esource Conservation and Recovery Act, impose criminal liability under a
negligent (misdemeanor) or knowing (felony) intent standard . Felonies require a “knowing” violation, but typically do
not require specific intent that their conduct violated the law.

The plan drains limited enforcement resources, which trade-offs with pre-existing
enforcement.
McGarity 13 (Thomas, Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long Endowed Chair in Administrative Law @
University of Texas School of Law, “When Strong Enforcement Works Better Than Weak Regulation: The
EPA/DOJ New Source Review Enforcement Initiative,” Maryland Law Review, Volume 72, Issue 4, Article
14, pp. 1204-1294, http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/mlr/vol72/iss4/14, ccm)

The third lesson of the NSR enforcement initiative is that strict

deterrence-based enforcement consumes large
quantities of scarce enforcement resources.634 In a time of governmental austerity, this is an important
impediment to deterrence-based enforcement programs in the federal government . More than any other
factor, the availability of enforcement resources determines the probability that violations will be
detected and vigorously prosecuted. Yet, vigorous enforcement will always be needed to bring flouters
to justice and to send a message to minimal compliers that they should think twice about getting too
close to the line between lawful and unlawful conduct.635
Deterrence is key. Decreasing prosecutions incentivizes wrongdoing.
Russo 17, JD Candidate @ Villanova (Christina, “Criminal Prosecution for Environmental Lawbreakers:
A Statute With No Bite,” 28 Vill. Envtl. L.J. 97, Lexis)//BB

Society has a compelling interest in reducing pollution and deterring illegal environmental behavior to
both preserve the United States' renowned beauty and protect its citizens from hazardous substances. 229 Society has a
further interest in ensuring that penalties for noncompliance are not unjustly severe, disproportionate,
or inconsistent. 230 An effective justice system, therefore, is dependent upon the proper balance of the paramount roles of
prosecutorial and judicial discretion in order to impose criminal sanctions. 231 Consequently, criminal sanctions are an integral
part of the deterrent approach for environmental laws. 232

The great inconsistences and doubts raised by the current environmental enforcement program may cause future offenders
to no longer fear the threat of prosecution, which negates the initial objective [*125] of deterring illegal,
heinous behavior. 233 The legal system breaches its duty to society when there is a great disparity among offenders who are sentenced.
234 Sentences must not only be based on judicial discretion, but must also be foreseeable in order for society to discern
the benefits of imposing consistent, economical deterrent sanctions. 235 Accordingly, society's compelling
interest in promoting stable, foreseeable, and proportionate deterrence will be satisfied if there is a reduction
in sentencing disparity and criminal sanctions are imposed when absolutely appropriate . 236

The endless controversy regarding the role and effectiveness of the criminal enforcement program for environmental laws
validates the substantial need for a stronger, standardized framework, and provides for a better "empirical understanding" of its
application. 237 Enforcing a new framework is admittedly difficult and a perfect system is always a work in progress, but
there must be affirmative action to effectuate positive changes and improvements . 238 Continuing or further
relaxing the current investigative and prosecutorial processes is definitely not a solution, or at least, not a good
solution to this problem. 239 The current path may lead to the extinction of some species of plant and animal life,
poisoned recreational waterways, contaminated reservoirs, ill-health, and above all, death of American
citizens. 240 Cost containment, a fiscal responsibility to our government, is among the charges. 241 Because of this, a better balance must be
reached. 242 As responsible members [*126] of society, American citizens are stewards of the environment charged to protect and preserve it
for today's population and for generations to come. 243 Nothing short of enforcement and prosecution that attains
this goal should be permitted. 244

Otherwise, extinction.
Ng ’19 [Yew-Kwang; May 2019; Professor of Economics at Nanyang Technology University, Fellow of
the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Member of the Advisory Board at the Global Priorities
Institute at Oxford University, Ph.D. in Economics from Sydney University; Global Policy, “Keynote:
Global Extinction and Animal Welfare: Two Priorities for Effective Altruism,” vol. 10, no. 2, p. 258-266;
RP]

Catastrophic climate change

Though by no means certain, CCC causing global extinction is possible due to interrelated factors of non‐
linearity, cascading effects, positive feedbacks, multiplicative factors, critical thresholds and tipping
points (e.g. Barnosky and Hadly, 2016; Belaia et al., 2017; Buldyrev et al., 2010; Grainger, 2017; Hansen and Sato, 2012; IPCC 2014; Kareiva
and Carranza, 2018; Osmond and Klausmeier, 2017; Rothman, 2017; Schuur et al., 2015; Sims and Finnoff, 2016; Van Aalst, 2006).7

A possibly imminent tipping point could be in the form of ‘an abrupt ice sheet collapse [that] could cause a
rapid sea level rise’ (Baum et al., 2011, p. 399). There are many avenues for positive feedback in global warming,
including:
  the replacement of an ice sea by a liquid ocean surface from melting reduces the reflection and increases
the absorption of sunlight, leading to faster warming;
 the drying of forests from warming increases forest fires and the release of more carbon; and
 higher ocean temperatures may lead to the release of methane trapped under the ocean floor, producing
runaway global warming.
Though there are also avenues for negative feedback, the scientific consensus is for an overall net positive feedback (Roe and Baker, 2007).
Thus, the Global Challenges Foundation (2017, p. 25) concludes, ‘The world is currently completely unprepared to envisage,
and even less deal with, the consequences of CCC’.

The threat of sea‐level rising from global warming is well known, but there are also other likely and more
imminent threats to the survivability of mankind and other living things. For example, Sherwood and Huber (2010)
emphasize the adaptability limit to climate change due to heat stress from high environmental wet‐bulb
temperature. They show that ‘even modest global warming could … expose large fractions of the [world]
population to unprecedented heat stress’ p. 9552 and that with substantial global warming, ‘the area of land
rendered uninhabitable by heat stress would dwarf that affected by rising sea level’ p. 9555, making extinction much
more likely and the relatively moderate damages estimated by most integrated assessment models unreliably low.

While imminent extinction is very unlikely and may not come for a long time even under business as usual, the main point is that we cannot
rule it out. Annan and Hargreaves (2011, pp. 434–435) may be right that there is ‘an upper 95 per cent probability limit for S [temperature
increase] … to lie close to 4°C, and certainly well below 6°C’. However, probabilities of 5 per cent, 0.5 per cent , 0.05 per cent or
even 0.005 per cent of excessive warming and the resulting extinction probabilities cannot be ruled out
and are unacceptable. Even if there is only a 1 per cent probability that there is a time bomb in the
airplane, you probably want to change your flight. Extinction of the whole world is more important to
avoid by literally a trillion times.
 OFF
Infrastructure now. Biden PC is key. Breaking the deal throws off the balance and kills
two track.
Pramuk 10-4’ — Jacob Pramuk, reporter, CNBC; (October 4th 2021; “Democrats aim to pass
infrastructure, social spending bills by the end of October, Schumer says”; CNBC;
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/04/schumer-aims-to-pass-biden-infrastructure-build-back-better-
plans-in-october.html; //LFS—JCM)

“Not every member will get everything he or she wanted,” Schumer wrote to Senate Democrats. “But at the end of the
day, we will pass legislation that will dramatically improve the lives of the American people. I believe we are going to do just
that in the month of October.” The Senate leader said he wanted to reach a final deal “within a matter of days, not
weeks.” Schumer set out the new timeline after House Democrats delayed a planned Thursday vote on the
Senate-passed infrastructure bill. Progressives, seeking assurances Democrats will pass their larger social spending and
climate proposal, withheld support for the bipartisan plan. Biden, Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,
all appear to have acknowledged neither bill will pass without the other. They have also stressed that both wings
of their party will have to yield ground to find a sweet spot between $1.5 trillion and $3.5 trillion. “We’re in the
process of continuing to talk to all the parties. We’ll see what we get,” Biden said Monday when asked if he would
accept a $2 trillion bill.

Talks in the
coming days will shape whether millions of Americans receive a dramatic boost in benefits in the
coming years. The
negotiations will also determine how big of a role the federal government will take in
curbing the threat of climate change. Democrats’ proposal could expand paid leave, make child care more affordable, extend a
more generous child tax credit, create universal pre-K and make two years of community college free. It could lower the Medicare eligibility age
and include dental, vision and hearing benefits in coverage. It
could also use tax credits and other incentives to
encourage the adoption of green energy and the construction of infrastructure more resilient against severe
weather. Democrats aim to offset the spending with tax increases on corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Schumer needs to win over at least two Senate Democratic holdouts: Joe Manchin of West Virginia and
Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. As the party tries to pass the plan with a simple majority through the budget
reconciliation process, the bill would fail if even one Democrat votes against it.

Biden on Monday acknowledged he still has work to do to get the two centrists’ support.

“I need 50 votes in the Senate. I have 48,” he said.

Pelosi cannot lose more than three members of her caucus in the House.

Manchin has backed a $1.5 trillion bill. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and Budget Committee chair who
once backed $6 trillion in spending, described the West Virginia senator’s asking price as “a good negotiating start.”

“Our job right now is to rally the American people to continue the negotiations,” he told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on
Sunday. “And I think at the end of the day we’re going to pass both pieces of legislation.”

The fate of Biden’s agenda will in part come down to how much momentum he can build for it. On
Friday, he rallied support for both pieces of his economic plan during a meeting of House Democrats.

He plans to travel to Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday to

tout his agenda. To pass both bills in the coming weeks,
Democrats will have to keep centrists and progressives on board during delicate talks. As party leaders have
seen in recent days, extending an olive branch to one flank of the party risks angering another.
Centrists including Sinema and Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., expressed frustration after the House pushed back
the infrastructure vote. In a statement Saturday, Sinema called the delay “deeply disappointing” and said it “erodes”
trust as the party tries to negotiate a compromise to pass the second bill. Biden on Saturday downplayed concerns
about whether his party can get behind his agenda. He signaled that building public support for the plans would play a role in
passing them this month. “I believe I can get this done,” he said. “I believe, when the American people are aware what’s in it, we
can get it done.”

The plan ensures the White Houses PC is squandered in a political quagmire — water
protection is massively controversial. Agency & Congress links.
Mayes ’18 — Morgan Mayes, J.D., Wake Forest University School of Law, B.A., Centre College; (2018;
“GOODBYE, STREAM PROTECTION RULE: THE CHOICE BETWEEN PROTECTING THE COAL INDUSTRY OR
NATURAL RESOURCES”; University of Michigan Libraries, Hein Online; Wake Forest University Law
Review, Vol. 53; //LFS—JCM)

A long-term solution to address the need for adequate natural resource protections from surface coal mining is
a congressional mandate. This option consists of Congress passing a bill that either contains SPR (or a version
of it) or directs OSMRE to develop a new rule. According to Cary Coglianese, director of the Penn Program on Regulation at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School, both of these options are possible and have been done before.11s Both options provide the opportunity
to address the same, or similar, concerns of SPR. However, since
the current Congress voted to overturn SPR, it is
unlikely that the current Congress will even consider either of these options in the near future .

Furthermore, it is likely that Democrats will need to control both Congress and the presidency for either of
these options to happen. This is not to say that Republicans are not capable or interested in protecting natural
resources. For example, Teddy Roosevelt advocated for a federal system of parks, forests, and monuments to help conserve natural
resources and extend protection to land and wildlife.119 Additionally, some of the nation's landmark pieces of environmental
legislation were enacted during and at the direction of the Nixon Administration. These include the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency 120 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ,121 and
the enactment of the National Environmental Policy Act,122 Clean Air Act,123 Clean Water Act, 124 and
Endangered Species Act.125 However, the Republican Party, at least in its current form, tends to disfavor
government regulations, 126 <<<BEGIN FOOTNOTE 126>>> 126. See generally REPUBLICAN NAT'L COMM., REPUBLICAN
PLATFORM 2016 at ii (2016) (discussing the Republican Party's views that government regulations are burdensome
and punish the states and the people). <<<END FOOTNOTE 126>>> which is evident in the Party's
approach to coal regulations. 127

The coal industry and its supporters, including many members of the Republican Party, use the term "war on
coal" to describe what they view as the federal government's attempt to make coal power uneconomical through
stringent and burdensome regulations. 128 Specifically, the coal industry and its allies argued that SPR was
"hugely expensive and a job killer" and viewed the rule as "unnecessary government overreach, [and]
regulatory duplication." 129 They emphasize that once such onerous rules, like SPR, are overturned, the coal industry can
return to the levels of success it had in the past.1 30 Regardless of which side is correct regarding whether less regulation will save the coal
industry, it
is clear that Congress and President Trump are unwilling to update existing surface coal mining rules to
adequately and effectively address the need for protection of our natural resources. Therefore,
congressional mandates will likely rely on Democratic control of both Congress and the White House, which
means that these are not viable options until at least 2020.

Infrastructure investment beats China in the tech-race.

Anderson 2-22-2021, Chairman & CEO of CG/LA Infrastructure, a firm focused on global infrastructure
project development, driving productivity across countries, and maximizing the benefits of
infrastructure for people in the U.S. and around the world (Norman, “The Biden Infrastructure Plan - 5
Actions To Jolt Us Awake, Now,” Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/normananderson/2021/02/22/the-biden-infrastructure-plan5-actions-to-
jolt-us-awake-now/?sh=1d72f17b2ebd)//BB

The Focus Needs to be on Creating Project Results. Producing immediate results is necessary for our political system - how does this work,
when the average highway project takes 9.5 years to move through the approval process, and 4.5 years after that for results - say cars, or
autonomous trucks, zipping down the freeway? Lucky for us we are not starting from scratch - we have an enormous pent-up
backlog of projects that can start showing results… this year.
By results I don’t just mean creating new and well-paying jobs, or saving the thousands of struggling professional service firms that are in
danger of turning off their computers, rather what I mean is addressing the Administration’s priorities in the way that infrastructure
professionals think about investment (yes, these people exist - and they are as smart as economists!):

 Brownfield projects - you can revitalize Army Corps reservoirs, or put 5G on interstate highways, or
authorize the Gateway tunnel, or make rural broadband really fast, right now, tomorrow,
 Greenfield projects - infrastructure is a ‘thinking short, thinking long’ business, so while you are speeding up
investment in ultra high voltage transmission lines , you can also get moving on the Brent Spence Bridge, and by
the end of 2024 you can get butts in seats on the Dallas/Houston high speed rail project, and the Great
Lakes Basin highway project, and
 New Infrastructure - this is the low-hanging fruit, and the battlefield between China and the
U.S. for global influence, period. Largely private, and almost wholly environmentally friendly, this is where our
economy has tremendous strengths that we are not seeing. It’s also the battlefield - AI, Machine Learning, 5G,
Autonomy, High Voltage Transmission, along with high speed rail - that is critical to the
achievement of every single goal that our country can set for the future .
Every infrastructure person - and every citizen - across the country can tell you the five projects that they’d like to see happen. The map above
is a 500 project stimulus map that my firm, CG/LA infrastructure, created by polling people around the country. Why not engage citizens now,
and show results this year, picking up steam in 2022 and in 2023? Infrastructure is 5G/AI and Electrification, and it Needs a Budget.
The infrastructure of the future is going to be as different as cellular is from fixed line telephony, and that future is coming at us extremely fast…
The 2020’s will be a decade of disruption - the greatest period of disruption in 100 years or more. We can either continue
our course, and try and weather the storm, or we can make the kind of strategic investments that will allow us to
lead - with enormous environmental and equity benefits, coupled with the kind of productivity increases
that come from rapid innovation. There couldn’t be a bigger difference between the way that China is
going about new infrastructure creation , with their top down, devil may care about the individual approach, and our celebration
of the individual. The problem - in democracies around the world - is that we are absent, and so China is
winning. Leaders Set Goals, Achieve Goals - and Create Trust. Who is in charge of infrastructure? Without an infrastructure office it is
hard to tell, and this is a fatal flaw problem. The presidency needs to to bring everyone together to discuss what world we want to create, what
our infrastructure vision going forward will look like. This needs to happen fast - and then we need to set goals that we all agree to: projects
completed, time to project approvals, life expectancy, reduction of traffic congestion, reduction in carbon by sector, even increases in
infrastructure equity. I am a business guy - everything is opportunity. Then we (all of us) need to row hard in the same direction, and achieve
those goals. Action This Day. If
we can get this right, the results for all of us will be extraordinary - domestic
growth, environmental leadership and an injection of strength into the global democratic model.
Unimaginable things can quickly be envisioned, and developed, including the return of manufacturing (advanced and distributed
manufacturing) to our newly digitized and electrified heartland. Infrastructure can bring us together, but it is a very heavy lift - as in war, the
first thing a president things about in the morning, and the last thing he thinks about before going to bed at night.

Chinese tech leadership causes extinction

Jain & Kroenig ’19 — Ash Jain, Senior Fellow, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Public
Policy Fellow, German Marshall Fund Transatlantic Academy, J.D., Georgetown University, M.A., Foreign
Service, Georgetown University, B.A., Political Science, University of Michigan; Matthew Kroenig, Deputy
Director, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Associate Professor, government and foreign
service at Georgetown University, member, Council on Foreign Relations, Ph.D., M.A., Political Science,
University of California, Berkeley; (2019; “Present at the Re-Creation: A Global Strategy for Revitalizing,
Adapting, and Defending a Rules-Based International System”; Atlantic Council;
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Present-at-the-Recreation.pdf; //LFS—
JCM)

The system must also be adapted to deal with new issues that were not envisioned when the existing order was
designed. Foremost among these issues is emerging and disruptive technology, including AI, additive manufacturing (or
3D printing), quantum computing, genetic engineering, robotics, directed energy, the Internet of things (IOT), 5G,
space, cyber, and many others. Like other disruptive technologies before them, these innovations promise great benefits, but
also carry serious downside risks. For example, AI is already resulting in massive efficiencies and cost savings in the private sector.
Routine tasks and other more complicated jobs, such as radiology, are already being automated. In the future, autonomous weapons
systems may go to war against each other as human soldiers remain out of harm’s way.
Yet, AI is also transforming economies and societies, and generating new security challenges. Automation will lead to widespread
unemployment. The final realization of driverless cars, for example, will put out of work millions of taxi, Uber, and long-haul truck drivers.
Populist movements in the West have been driven by those disaffected by globalization and technology, and mass
unemployment caused by automation will further grow those ranks and provide new fuel to grievance politics. Moreover, some fear
that autonomous weapons systems will become “killer robots” that select and engage targets without
human input, and could eventually turn on their creators, resulting in human extinction.

The other technologies on this list similarly balance great potential upside with great downside risk. 3D printing,
for example, can be used to “make anything anywhere,” reducing costs for a wide range of manufactured goods and encouraging a return of
local manufacturing industries.61 At the same time, advanced 3D printers can
also be used by revisionist and rogue states to
print component parts for advanced weapons systems or even WMD programs, spurring arms races and
weapons proliferation.62 Genetic engineering can wipe out entire classes of disease through improved medicine,
or wipe out entire classes of people through genetically engineered superbugs. Directed-energy missile defenses may defend
against incoming missile attacks, while also undermining global strategic stability.

Perhaps the greatest risk to global strategic stability from new technology, however, comes from the risk that
revisionist autocracies may win the new tech arms race. Throughout history, states that have dominated the
commanding heights of technological progress have also dominated international relations. The United States has
been the world’s innovation leader from Edison’s light bulb to nuclear weapons and the Internet. Accordingly, stability has been
maintained in Europe and Asia for decades because the United States and its democratic allies possessed a
favorable economic and military balance of power in those key regions. Many believe, however, that China may now
have the lead in the new technologies of the twenty-first century, including AI, quantum, 5G, hypersonic missiles, and others. If
China succeeds in mastering the technologies of the future before the democratic core, then this could lead to a drastic and
rapid shift in the balance of power, upsetting global strategic stability, and the call for a democratic-led, rules-based
system outlined in these pages.63
 OFF
The Court will decline to overturn abortion precedent now---it hinges on a centrist
bloc cajoled by Robert’s political capital.
Robinson ’21 [Kimberly; June 18; Reporter; Bloomberg Law, “Barrett Channels Roberts’ ‘Go-Slow’
Approach in Landmark Cases,” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/barrett-channels-roberts-
go-slow-approach-in-landmark-cases]

The U.S. Supreme Court’s newest justice is showing signs that she’s more aligned with John Roberts and
Brett Kavanaugh in the center than she is with her other conservative colleagues, refusing to support
broad rulings that could shake the court’s credibility.

Amy Coney Barrett

is “starting to show her stripes” as a moderate who prefers small movements in the
law, not huge shifts, South Texas College of Law Houston professor Josh Blackman said.

The justices handed down victories to both liberals and conservatives on Thursday saving the Affordable
Care Act again but siding with a religious group in the latest battle over LGBT protections.

Roberts, the chief justice, is viewed as an institutionalist who wants to conserve the public’s confidence
in the court. So far, he favors incremental shifts in the law. “That’s been one of the Chief’s primary goals
all along,” said Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler.

He recently gained an ally in Kavanaugh in this pursuit, and it appears Barrett may join their ranks.

The court as a whole has has largely agreed in cases this year. The unanimous decision in the LGBT case
was the 25th time the justices were unanimous in 41 rulings so far this term. There are 15 to go in coming days.

But thebig test for Barrett will be next term starting in October when the justices will tackle hot-button
issues like guns, abortion, and possibly affirmative action.
“It is a very conservative Court, even if we will only get glimpses of it this year,” said UC Berkeley law school Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.

Kicking the Can

Both the Affordable Care Act and LGBT rulings were “very, very narrow,” Georgia State law professor EricSegall said.

In the Obamacare case, California v. Texas, the 7-2 majority handed down a procedural ruling to avoid
undoing the landmark 2010 law. The justices said red states led by Texas didn’t have a legal basis—or standing—to challenge it.
Only Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have voted to gut the act, long a priority of Republicans.

The LGBT ruling, while unanimous in its outcome, was splintered in its reasoning. Hiding under the 9-0 breakdown was a dispute about whether
to overturn the court’s divisive ruling in Employment Division v. Smith, which sparked the passage of the bipartisan Religious Freedom
Protection Act and mini state versions across the country.

The court in Smith refused to require an exception from Oregon’s prohibition on peyote, saying religious objectors don’t get a free pass on
“generally applicable” laws.

On opposite ends in the court’s LGBT ruling were the liberal justices—Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—along with Roberts,
who wanted to uphold the court’s precedent in Smith, and the court’s most conservative members—Clarence Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch—
who wanted it overruled once and for all.
In the middle was Barrett, joined by Kavanaugh, who acknowledged  Smith‘s shortcomings but was
concerned with the fallout should the court overrule it. “Yet what should replace Smith?” Barrett asked in a short
concurrence.

Both cases were a punt, Blackman said, with the issues likely to return to the court at some point in the future.
End of the World

But theACA and LGBT cases, along with the extraordinary agreement all term, suggests a majority of the
justices don’t think it’s the right time to make major changes in the law.

“In the throes of everything"—the pandemic, Barrett’s first term, Kavanaugh’s biting confirmation, calls for Breyer to retire, and the
caustic 2020 presidential election—"they didn’t want to shock the world this year,” Segall said.

“Preserving the court’s own political capital is incredibly important to the justices because they know
their only capital is the confidence of the American people,” he added.

Adler said the

court has developed a sort of 3-3-3 split—that is, three liberals, three conservative justices
willing to chuck precedents they don’t agree with, and three conservative justices hesitant to overturn
cases they may disagree with. Roberts, Kavanaugh, and now, apparently, Barrett make up that last group.

Adler said that split will create some interesting pressures for the three justices in the middle next term,
when—as Segall said—"the world will end.”

The end of the world was a

reference—in part—to the court’s abortion case, which could call into question the
landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade and later cases.

The plan’s judicial activism makes the court look partisan.

Richard Lazarus and Sara Zdeb, 1-5-2021, [Richard Lazarus is the Howard and Katherine Aibel
Professor of Law at Harvard University, where he teaches environmental law, natural resources Law,
Supreme Court advocacy, and torts. Sara Zdeb is the Chief Counsel for Oversight, U.S. Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, "Environmental Law & Politics", American Bar Association,
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/publications/insights-on-law-and-society/
volume-19/insights-vol--19---issue-1/environmental-law---politics/ //Weese]
In 2007, the environment—in particular, global warming—burst into the public consciousness. Former Vice President Al Gore won the Nobel
Peace Prize and saw his film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” win an Oscar and become the fourth highest-grossing documentary of all time.
International leaders gathered in Bali at the close of the year to launch a new round of climate change negotiations. And here at home, the
United States Congress took up varying proposals to combat global warming while the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling on the issue.
Global warming may represent the newest frontier in environmental law, but the lawmaking institutions working to address it have more than
30 years of history on which to build. This history has been tumultuous, but throughout it environmental law has grown, overcoming challenges
and demonstrating a surprising resilience. Whether tackling global warming, water pollution, or the protection of
endangered species, environmental lawmaking is uniquely and inherently difficult. As such, its persistence over the
past three decades is even more remarkable. Making environmental law is difficult in part because the environment itself is so complex.
Ecological systems are complicated and dynamic, as are the factors that contribute to environmental change. Environmental law must take this
complexity into account. For example, when setting standards limiting the amount of a particular air pollutant, the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) must consider ecological factors including temperature, atmospheric pressure, and wind. The EPA also must take into account the
many sources that contribute the pollutant into the air. Finally, the agency must consider how all these factors relate to human health—a
measure by which it sets standards under the Clean Air Act. Our constitutional system itself poses additional hurdles. Lawmaking
institutions are divided vertically between the federal government and states, as well as horizontally among Congress,
executive branch agencies, and the courts. This deliberately fragmented system makes any type of lawmaking difficult and
incremental. Enacting environmental laws is particularly difficult, because the injuries they seek to prevent are often far-off and diffuse,
while their economic impact may be immediate. In addition, the Constitution limits the powers of Congress to an enumerated list that does not
expressly mention the environment. As a result, legislators must hitch federal environmental laws to authority Congress does possess, such as
the ability to regulate economic activity under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. The Road to Environmental Law Despite these obstacles,
the seeds of environmental law germinated several decades ago, and by 1970 its roots were firmly planted. While the term “environmental
law” was not formally coined until 1969, numerous natural resource and pollution control laws were on the books far beforehand. Early federal
regulation of forests, minerals, and other resources favored private economic exploitation. Beginning in the early to mid-20th century, Congress
enacted a set of natural resource laws that gradually jettisoned this one-sided approach and began embracing the goals of preservation and
conservation. Early laws such as the Antiquities Act of 1935 set the stage for a series of even more protective ones in the 1960s, culminating
with the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968. At the same time, Congress passed a number of clean air and water
laws in the 1960s that served as precedents for even more ambitious lawmaking to come. Public consciousness of environmental issues was
also growing. Publications such as Silent Spring—Rachel Carson’s 1962 missive against pesticide use—captured the nation’s attention. So did
highly visible environmental disasters later in the decade, including the 1969 oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast and, famously, the burning of
the polluted Cuyahoga River. By 1970 the stage had been set: a diffuse body of environmental law already existed, and the public supported
more. The 1970s was a seminal decade for environmental protection. Its first year saw three major accomplishments: the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Clean Air Act, and the creation of the EPA. NEPA alone was groundbreaking. Often called the “Magna
Carta of environmental law,” it articulated a broad declaration of national policy to protect the environment. NEPA’s action-forcing
requirements were even more significant than its aspirational policy statements. The law required federal agencies to assess the environmental
impacts of their actions and to identify alternatives less likely to harm the environment. This “look-before- you-leap” approach changed the way
the federal bureaucracy operated and proved—along with the law’s information disclosure requirements—NEPA’s most enduring legacy.
Congress enacted nearly two dozen environmental laws over the course of the decade, and it did so with overwhelming bipartisan majorities.
The federal environmental laws of the 1970s were dramatic, sweeping, and uncompromising. In addition to NEPA, there were public health and
pollution control laws such as the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. There were also natural resources laws such as the Endangered Species
Act, Natural Forest Management Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act. The natural resources laws of the 1970s were particularly
noteworthy for the balance they struck in favor of conservation and against exploitation. The most sweeping—the Endangered Species Act—
went even farther, making the prevention of extinction its overriding policy objective. The 1970s also witnessed the emergence of the criticism
and controversy that face environmental law to this day. Ironically, President Nixon began the decade as one of environmental law’s biggest
supporters but ended his term a skeptic of the very laws he initially championed. Controversy arose in other corners, too. Some
environmentalists were dissatisfied with the pace of progress, while regulated industries argued that EPA was overreaching. By the end of the
decade, the federalist and regulatory reform movements that would later flourish had begun to take shape. Nonetheless, Congress continued
passing far-reaching laws, and the courts—including the Supreme Court—broadly interpreted them both in terms of their jurisdictional reach
and their regulatory rigor. The 1980s: Consensus Breaks Down The 1980s were tumultuous years that saw numerous challenges to
environmental law—but in the end confirmed its surprising persistence. President Nixon may have begun his administration as a cheerleader
for environmental law and ended as a skeptic, but President Ronald Reagan left no doubt about where he stood on the body of laws enacted in
the 1970s. Reagan aligned himself with the “Sagebrush Rebels,” a movement of western opponents of federal ownership of public lands.
Immediately after his inauguration, he launched a cabinet-level task force on “regulatory relief” that suspended numerous pending regulations
and encouraged industry to target particularly burdensome ones. Similarly, he signed an executive order requiring cost-benefit analysis of
major rules and giving the Office of Management and Budget significant authority to review and shape regulations. The heads of Reagan’s
Interior Department and EPA—James Watt and Anne Gorsuch (mother of now U.S. Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch, and the first woman to
lead the agency)—were openly hostile toward the agencies they led. Watt described the Interior Department as “oppressive,” and Gorsuch
drew fire for attempting to cut EPA’s budget by as much as one third. Both eventually left their posts with controversy in their wake (Gorsuch’s
refusal to turn over documents to Congress led to an inter-branch confrontation and the ultimate perjury conviction of one of her assistants).
Ironically, Watt and Gorsuch were such lightning rods that they undermined Reagan’s environmental agenda. While Watt succeeded in
expanding oil, gas, and mineral leasing on public lands, he and Gorsuch failed to achieve many of the big reversals of environmental protection
that Reagan supported. Indeed, environmental law not only withstood challenges but grew and expanded during the 1980s. President Jimmy
Carter ended his term in 1980 by signing two key laws. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act reaffirmed federal stewardship of
public lands in Alaska. And the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, enacted in response to the toxic
waste crisis at Love Canal and other abandoned and inactive hazardous waste sites across the country, created a dramatic new liability program
that forced polluting industries to pay for the cost of toxic waste cleanup. Congress also amended and strengthened existing laws, such as the
Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, over the course of the decade. Reflecting Congress’s dwindling trust in the
executive branch, the new laws were increasingly prescriptive and less deferential to federal agency expertise; they added tough new deadlines
on EPA’s implementation of new regulatory programs, and they imposed even stricter controls on industry. Finally, Congress reaffirmed the
importance of information disclosure that it first embraced in NEPA, passing the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of
1986. Enacted in the wake of a chemical plant explosion in Bhopal, India, the law required industry to inform communities when it used and
released dangerous substances. The 1990s: Partisan
Gridlock The political makeup of the federal government
changed dramatically in the 1990s. President George Bush, like Nixon, marked the beginning of his term with environmental
accomplishments, signing the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments into law. And like Nixon, Bush ended his term a skeptic, proposing to drill for oil
in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and only grudgingly attending the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. The election of President Bill Clinton
changed the executive branch’s approach to environmental law, but countervailing changes
in the composition of Congress
and the courts led to increasing conflicts over environmental goals and policies. In 1994, Republican
congressional candidates swept into power, capturing control of the House and Senate. As part of its “Contract with America,” the 104th
Congress proposed legislation to elevate the rights of landowners, require cost-benefit analysis of environmental laws, and single out
environmental programs for disproportionate budget cuts. While his campaign for the presidency stressed the economy and not a green
agenda, Clinton found political advantage in fighting Congress’s proposed environmental reforms—and few ultimately became law. This same
partisan gridlock prevented the legislative overhauls that characterized the previous two decades. Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and EPA
administrator Carol Browner responded by pursuing an activist, ambitious lawmaking agenda by administrative regulation. Congress in turn
sought to block new regulations by attaching “riders,” or unrelated policy provisions, to its annual spending bills. Controversy, gridlock, and the
demise of bipartisanship were hallmarks of environmental lawmaking in the 1990s. These hallmarks have continued throughout the current
Bush administration, which suspended a host of Clinton-era environmental regulations immediately upon taking office. The Bush administration
also drew fire for promoting energy and national forest policies that emphasized exploitation of natural resources. When Congress took up
these issues, it divided largely on party lines. This continuing
deterioration of bipartisanship stands in stark contrast
to the broad congressional support that environmental law drew from both parties in its early decades.
The courts also underwent major changes beginning in the 1990s , as years of conservative judicial
appointments by Presidents Reagan and Bush came to fruition . The courts became increasingly skeptical
of the efficacy of environmental protection laws. In a series of cases narrowing Congress’s authority to regulate economic
activity under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, the Supreme Court called into question the very foundation on which laws such as the
Endangered Species Act rest. While domestic environmental law persisted, international environmental law became environmental law’s most
engaging and dynamic area in the 1990s. By the end of the decade, the United Nations listed approximately 1,000 international environmental
agreements of one kind or another—far greater than the 52 agreements that existed in 1970. At the same time, concern about the intersection
of trade and the environment, as well as energy and the environment, arose. The Future The 21st century has brought new
challenges, none greater than global warming. The most powerful and wealthiest nations in the world are the greatest cause of greenhouse
gas emissions; by contrast, many of the poorest parts of the globe are most immediately and devastatingly threatened. Effective control of
global warming, moreover, will require not only major reductions by the world’s most powerful countries but also the agreement of developing
nations now caught in a bind between economic development and the environment. In short, environmental
lawmaking to address
global warming will need to conquer the same kind of hurdles it has always faced, which have made
environmental lawmaking so difficult and controversial. The only significant difference is that the hurdles are now much
higher in light of global warming’s extraordinary spatial and temporal dimensions. Lawmaking to address global warming will require sweeping
international and domestic laws, the creation of new international lawmaking institutions, and perhaps also new domestic institutions. The
challenges are enormous, but so too are environmental law’s past achievements and future aspirations.

U.S. reproductive rights policy models globally.

GFW ’17 [Global Fund for Women; January 20; Feminist fundraising organization devoted to global
gender justice movements; GFW, “Women’s movements matter more than ever: A critical moment for
global women’s rights,” https://www.globalfundforwomen.org/what-we-do/voice/campaigns/build-
movements-not-walls/womens-movements-a-critical-moment-for-global-womens-rights/]

We have decades of proof that U.S. policies and leadership directly influence policies and decisions
globally, and we know that it is women who are often most acutely impacted—for better or for worse. For example,
we know that U.S. policies can directly block women’s access to reproductive health and rights. The ‘Global Gag
Rule’ prohibited U.S. foreign aid to any organization that delivers abortion services, but was repealed by President Obama. Before the law’s
repeal, there was a massive chilling effect on many global efforts for reproductive health—and in one of his first executive actions as President,
Trump reinstated and expanded the Global Gag Rule, which will have damaging impacts on women’s access to critical health care ranging from
maternal care to sex education, to access to contraception and HIV and AIDS prevention and services.

Conversely, the U.S. State Department’s leadership on issues such as ending child marriage has been a positive global force for advancing
women’s rights. The
U.S.’s stance on human rights is critical to protecting women’s rights all over the world
—especially in armed conflict and political turmoil as it is in such scenarios that sexual violence escalates
and women’s needs and voices are often silenced.

At this moment of transition, women’s movements around the world are poised to ensure that
women’s voices are heard and that human rights are not rolled back. They tell us that they will continue to
advocate for key issues like reproductive rights, ending sexual violence in conflict, and girls’ rights. They
are determined to grow and flourish, to make connections, and to work together across borders.
“At a time of transition like this it
is understandable to worry about the future , especially for women and girls,” says
Musimbi Kanyoro, President and CEO of Global Fund for Women. “But I’ve worked my entire career with women’s movements around the
world, and because of them, I remain hopeful. At this critical moment, women’s movements are becoming
stronger, more global, and more inclusive than ever before. When they have access to the resources
and tools that they need, they are a force to be reckoned with. As we commit to resisting regressions in women’s rights
and advocating for what we believe in, let’s all work together to #BuildMovementsNotWalls.”

Global Fund for Women spoke with our network of women activists and grassroots leaders from around the world to better understand their
hopes and concerns in
relation to the new U.S. President and his administration, and the potential for impact on their
own work. From
Brazil to Iraq, and from Nigeria to the Ukraine and Israel, women’s rights leaders are
examining the potential repercussions for women and girls. They offer advice for people in the U.S. for movement-
building and resistance, and share their hopes for a strong, collective force that will fight across borders against rollbacks to rights and threats
to activists.

A critical global moment for women’s rights

The transition of power in the U.S. comes at a critical time for women’s rights around the world.
Women all around the world are facing threats to their fundamental rights, ranging from abortion access and
ending sexual violence to racial justice and environmental rights.

Global movements for reproductive health and rights—including campaigns for access to contraceptives and safe and legal
abortion—are at a critical moment. They are under threat in countless places , including in Latin America and the
Caribbean where maternal mortality rates from unsafe abortions are highest, and facing powerful opposition from religious
and cultural fundamentalists and others.
Groups working with refugee women and girls also face a pivotal moment. The vast majority of Syrian refugee women and girls are hosted in
Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan, where women’s groups are focused on providing core services including anti-violence training and healthcare
while empowering refugee women with knowledge about their rights, leadership skills, and economic opportunities—and these women’s
groups are advocating for critical changes in national laws that restrict refugees’ access to jobs, hospitals, and other basic rights citizens have.
Concerns are escalating about how the policies of a new U.S. administration may impact their work.
Feminist activists globally are increasingly facing fears for their safety. For example, in Egypt, Turkey, and several other countries, we’ve
witnessed an escalating crackdown on feminist and human rights activism, including harassment against women human rights defenders and
threats to journalists and academics. In many places—such as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and Court— U.S. influence
is a critical factor in enforcing mechanisms for their protection.

In countries from Sub-Saharan Africa to Asia and the Pacific, grassroots women are coming together to
protect their land and water rights amid climate change and increased violence to improve their own farming and local food sources,
and to increase their economic opportunities.

Women are standing up against rollbacks to rights, resisting the rise of conservatism, blocking
dangerous anti-women policies, and fearlessly defending women’s rights amid conflicts and political
and economic crises.

Conservative leadership is on the rise in many countries around the world and women’s groups are
joining forces to share their strategies of resistance.
Connecting the dots in threats to fundamental rights globally—and learning together

“As far as women and other civil society organizations [in Africa] are concerned, all progressive issues might suffer under a Trump Presidency,”
says Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, co-founder of African Women’s Development Fund and Global Fund for Women Board Member. “Women’s rights,
sexual and reproductive rights, climate change, LGBTQ individuals, Muslim people, refugees… are not likely to get the attention they deserve—
they will probably get the wrong kind of attention.”
Indeed, policystances in the U.S. will have a direct impact on global communities and situations. And by and
large, many of the key human rights issues that are coming into play in U.S. domestic policy including
access to reproductive health and rights and ending violence against women, are issues that are under the spotlight
in other places around the world. U.S. leadership could play a significant role—either in moving the
needle positively on these critical issues, or in condoning or precipitating the rollback of hard-won
gains.

Expanding reproductive freedom slows overpopulation---extinction.

Engelman ’11 [Robert; May 2011; Vice President for Programs at the Worldwatch Institute, M.Sc.
from Columbia University; Solutions, “An End to Population Growth: Why Family Planning Is Key to a
Sustainable Future,” vol. 2]

In a joint statement in 1993, representatives

of 58 national scientific academies stressed the complexities of the population-
environment relationship but nonetheless concluded,
“As human numbers increase, the potential for irreversible
changes of far-reaching magnitude also increases. … In our judgment, humanity’s ability to deal successfully
with its social, economic, and environmental problems will require the achievement of zero population
growth within the lifetime of our children. ”3 In 2005, the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment identified
population growth as a principal indirect driver of environmental change, along with economic growth and technological evolution.4

In October 2010, a group of US and European climate and demographic researchers published findings from an integrated assessment model
calculating the impact of various population scenarios on fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions over the coming century. If world
population peaked at close to 8 billion rather than 9 billion, along the lines described in a low-fertility demographic
projection published by the UN Population Division, the model predicted there would be a significant emissions savings:
about 5.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide by 2050 and 18.7 billion tons by century’s end.5

What if we could prove wrong the popular conviction that a future with 9 billion people and a growing population is inevitable? Suppose we
could demonstrate that world population size might peak earlier and at a lower level if government policies
aimed not at reproductive coercion but at individual reproductive freedom? Suppose such policies aimed to help
all women and girls prevent unwanted pregnancies and conceive only when they want to bear a child?
This article presents new data on births resulting from women’s active intentions to become pregnant. The hypothesis it probes may
appear counterintuitive: if, starting at any moment, all pregnancies in the world resulted from each
woman’s intent to give birth, human population would immediately shift course away from growth
toward decline within a few decades.
An Ethical Basis for Action to Slow Population Growth

What can societies that value democracy, self-determination, human rights, personal autonomy, and privacy do to include demographic change
among strategies for environmental sustainability? An important answer may lie in a relatively untested set of principles adopted by almost all
the world’s nations at a 1994 UN conference held in Cairo. The third of three once-a-decade governmental conferences on population and
development, it produced a program of action that abandoned the strategy of “population control” by governments in favor of a focus on the
health, rights, and well-being of women.6 An operating assumption of this program is that when
women have access to the
information and means that allow them to choose the timing of pregnancy, the intervals between
births lengthen, average family size shrinks, and teen births become less frequent. All of these improve
maternal and child survival and slow population growth.7
Experts disagree on how reproductive autonomy compares with other strategies in slowing that growth. Some assume economic growth is the
most effective means, although birthrates rose along with prosperity in many countries after World War II and remain relatively high in several
wealthy oil-exporting nations in which women have fewer rights and lower status than men.8 Moreover, some analysts argue that the arrow of
causation operates more in the other direction, with low fertility stoking economic growth.9

There is a more robust and demonstrable correlation between female educational attainment and fertility. Worldwide, women with no
schooling have an average of 4.5 children, while those who have spent at least a year or more in primary school have just three. Women who
complete at least a year or two of secondary school have 1.9 children—well below replacement fertility rates. With one or two years of
advanced education for women, average childbearing rates fall even further, to 1.7.10 On this basis alone, those interested in depressing
population growth rates might want to focus on improving women’s educational attainment.

Questions remain about whether education alone can bring about declines in fertility without other supporting conditions, especially easy,
affordable access to a range of contraceptive options. Similar uncertainties cloud understanding of exactly how improved child survival and the
empowerment of women affect fertility. Improving both factors certainly contributes to later births and smaller families and is valuable
regardless of its demographic impacts. But without clear data on the magnitude of these influences, interventions related to schooling, child
survival, and women’s empowerment are rarely seen as core aspects of governmental population policy.

This brings us to family planning. Access to safe and reliable contraception has exploded since the mid-twentieth
century. An estimated 55 percent of all heterosexually active women worldwide now use modern contraceptive methods, while an
additional seven percent use less reliable traditional methods.11 As the use of birth control has spread, fertility has
plummeted from a global average of five children per woman in 1950 to barely more than 2.5 today.1
ON
 1nc — pollution advantage
Alt-causes to runoff — agriculture subsidies, fracking, AND meeting permit
requirements still allows for SOME pollution.

No dead zones impact and alt causes.

Duarte et. al 15 — University of Western Australia's Oceans Institute and School of Plant Biology,
Department of Global Change Research at the Instituto Mediterráneo de Estudios Avanzados (Carlos,
with Robinson W. Fulweiler, Department of Earth and Environment and the Department of Biology at
Boston University, Catherine E. Lovelock and John M. Pandolfi both School of Biological Sciences at the
University of Queensland, Paulina Martinetto, Laboratorio de Ecología at the Instituto de Investigaciones
Marinas y Costeras, Megan I. Saunders, Global Change Institute and the Marine Spatial Ecology Lab at
the University of Queensland, Stefan Gelcich, Laboratorio Internacional en Cambio Global (Lincglobal)
and with the Centro de Conservacion Marina, in the Departamento de Ecologia, Facultad de Ciencias
Biologicas, at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Scott Nixon, Graduate School of Oceanography
at the University of Rhode Island, “Reconsidering Ocean Calamities,” BioScience (February 2015) 65 (2):
130-139, dml)

It is tempting to assume that all harmful algal blooms (HABs) are caused only by human activities, such as
changes to the delivery of both the quantity and the ratio of nutrients available to marine systems (Nixon 1995). In particular, excess
nitrogen and phosphorus in reference to silica favors the growth and proliferation of nonsiliceous phytoplankton, most often
flagellates (Van Dolah 2000). Reduced nutrient inputs have , therefore, proven successful in reducing HABs in some cases
(Okaichi 1997, Bodeanu and Ruta 1998). However, the connections between anthropogenic eutrophication and HAB
proliferation is more uncertain in some cases (Anderson et al. 2012), such as HAB occurrence in association
with upwelling nutrient supplies (Anderson et al. 2008) or nutrient limitation rather than excess (Smayda 2008). Overall, a
complex picture remains, with clear cases of some HAB's being driven solely by human activities; some
being driven by larger-scale forcings; and those that, at this point, cannot be cleanly associated with one
cause or another.

No acidification impact — if there is one, it’s positive.

Goklany 15—independent scholar and author, member of the US delegation that established the IPCC
and helped develop its First Assessment Report, he subsequently served as a US delegate to the IPCC,
and an IPCC reviewer, he is a member of the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council (Indur, “CARBON
DIOXIDE: The good news”, http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2015/10/benefits1.pdf, dml)

Increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere clearly increase the growth rate of land plants , other
things being equal. Is the same true for marine photosynthesisers such as algae, phytoplankton and symbiotic zooxanthellae in
corals? Carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater and there is good evidence that this causes enhanced growth
rates in many taxa. This is despite the fact that dissolved carbon dioxide forms bicarbonate ions, which slightly
decrease the pH of the water, leading to what is often inaccurately called ‘ocean acidification’. There is
no likelihood of the ocean’s average pH getting anywhere near as low as 7 because of elevated carbon dioxide
concentrations during the next three centuries. Ocean pH currently averages about 8 and is forecast to fall by 0.2 pH units
or so during the present century. This change is considerably smaller than the difference in pH between
different parts of the ocean, different days in the same part of the ocean, and even different times of
day in coral reef lagoons. An examination of upper-ocean pH for a wide variety of ecosystems ranging from polar to tropical, open-ocean to
coastal, kelp forest to coral reefs, indicates that variations in month-long pH spanned a range of 0.024 –1.430 pH units, and found that many
organisms ‘are already experiencing pH regimes that are not predicted until 2100.’93 In other words, the projected change in pH is much
smaller than the noise in its natural variation. So it is highly speculative that this small long-term trend will bring problems for marine life that
are greater than the benefits of extra carbon dioxide for photosynthetic marine organisms and hence the whole marine biosphere.
Here follow some examples of studies finding positive or neutral impacts of lower pH on different groups of marine photosynthesisers:

Cocolithophores Iglesias-Rodriguez et al. found evidence that ‘calcification and net primary production in the coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi are significantly increased by high carbon dioxide partial pressures’ in the
laboratory while ‘field evidence from the deep ocean is consistent with these laboratory conclusions, indicating that over the past 220 years there has been a 40% increase in average coccolith mass’.94 Coccolithophores are among
the most abundant phytoplankton in the oceans. Notably, Duarte et al. classify the evidence for a decline of calcifiers due to ocean acidification for this century as weak.95

Diatoms In diatoms, ‘no significant change in the yield was found between the low and high carbon dioxide levels’ and ‘increased dissolved carbon dioxide concentration did not affect the mean cell size and cell volume of
Phaeodactylum tricornutum’.96 Foraminifera Vogel and Uthicke found that ‘the species investigated were still able to build up their calcite skeletons in carbon dioxide conditions predicted for the year 2100 and beyond’, and
‘contrary to expectations, M. vertebralis showed significantly increased growth rates in elevated carbon dioxide’.97

Marine algae and other marine plants In marine algae, many studies find that enhanced carbon dioxide results in faster growth. In other marine
plants such as eelgrasses, Palacios and Zimmermann concluded that ‘ocean
acidification will stimulate seagrass biomass
and productivity, leading to more favorable habitat and conditions for associated invertebrate and fish
species’.98 Indeed, according to Hendriks et al, the carbon dioxide fertilisation effect might reverse acidification:
‘sea-grass photosynthetic rates may increase by 50% with increased carbon dioxide, which may deplete the carbon dioxide pool,
maintaining an elevated pH that may protect associated calcifying organisms from the impacts of
ocean acidification’,99 at least in their vicinity.

Thus for many primary producers in the ocean, increased

levels of dissolved carbon dioxide will stimulate ecosystem
productivity with positive implications for the food chain. Studies suggest that this effect will probably
outweigh any drawbacks from slightly lower pH.
Could the same be true for corals? Corals build reefs by calcification, depositing calcium carbonate in their skeletons. This process is energetically costly and the energy cost increases at lower pH. However, the energy is supplied by
symbiotic zooxanthellae in the corals, which photosynthesise.100 Thus the limiting factor on coral growth may be biological rather than chemical. Muscatine et al. conclude that ‘symbiotic algae may control calcification by. . .
modification of physico-chemical parameters within the coral polyps’.101 This could explain why the growth rate of coral reefs shows no signs of declining as predicted. As Kleypas et al. argue with respect to benthic corals, ‘[t]he
drawdown of total dissolved inorganic carbon due to photosynthesis and calcification of reef communities can exceed the drawdown of total alkalinity due to calcification of corals and calcifying algae, leading to a net increase in
aragonite saturation state’.102

The general finding that calcifier organisms do not deposit less calcium when carbon dioxide
concentrations increase is borne out by an experimental study by Findlay et al. using three molluscs, one barnacle and a
brittle star. They write that ‘contrary to popular predictions, the deposition of calcium carbonate can be
maintained or even increased in acidified seawater’.103 Similarly, a ‘field growth experiment revealed seven times higher
growth and calcification rates of [blue mussel Mytilus edulis] at a high carbon dioxide inner fjord field station . . .in comparison to a low pCO2
outer fjord station. . . ’104
Recent laboratory experiments to investigate the variation in the coral calcification rate of the scleractinian coral Siderastrea siderea – an abundant reef-builder in the Caribbean Sea – with warming and changes in pH found that
under a more-orless constant temperature of 28◦C, calcification rates increased as atmospheric carbon dioxide was increased from near-pre-industrial levels of 324 ppm to 447 ppm, remained relatively unchanged at the predicted
end-of-century value of 604 ppm and then returned to near-pre-industrial rates at 2500 ppm.105 It also found that while holding the carbon dioxide level at 488 ppm, calcification rates increased as the temperature increased from
25◦C to 28◦C, but it declined by 80% when temperature was increased to 32◦C. These results suggest that rapid ocean warming will pose a threat to S. siderea in the longer term but that ocean acidification will be little or no threat
for several centuries. Moreover, the experimentally determined calcification rates might have been adversely affected by the disruption to the coral due to the need to cut, transplant and prepare it for analysis. No less important is
the fact that the changes in pH and temperature were imposed over a period of just a few months. In the real world such changes would occur over a century or more, which means some adaptation cannot be precluded, for
example via symbiont shuffling.106

By far the largest peer-reviewed meta-analysis of the effect of ocean acidification upon marine life
came to a strikingly unfashionable conclusion. Hendriks et al. studied the results of 372 experiments
involving raised carbon dioxide levels on 44 species and found ‘limited experimental support’ for the
theoretical predictions of negative impacts of ocean acidification. Marine organisms, they conclude, are
‘more resistant to ocean acidification than suggested by pessimistic predictions. . . ’, and thus this
phenomenon ‘may not be the widespread problem conjured into the 21st century’ .107
Alt-causes to aquatic bio-d loss.
Bassem 20 (Samah, Associate Professor @ National Research Center’s Department of Water Pollution,
Egypt, “Water pollution and aquatic biodiversity,” Biodiversity International Journal, volume 4, issue 1,
1/16/20, page 16, DOI: 10.15406/bij.2020.04.00159, ccm, *passage modified for grammatic integrity;
(an ‘)’ has been added after “seen as decreasing” because the lack of a ‘)’ is a typo; - added [such] –
added 3 commas to account for the addition of [while], the excerpt that follows is the modified version
inserted into the text, unmodified excludes the commas and [while], “industrial and domestic sources,
[while] other pollution sources are growing, such as chemical pollution, which act as important threats
to water bodies” changes denoted by brackets)

Global aquatic biodiversity suffers from major threats that can be grouped in the following categories : i)
Climate change ii) Water pollution; iii) Overexploitation; iv) invasion by exotic species; v) habitat
degradation and vi) flow modification.36–39 Climate change is known as the alterations in atmospheric,
biogeochemical and hydrological cycles. The fluctuations such as: delicate variations in average daily
temperatures, the period of rainy seasons, carbon cycle, night-time temperature, and also solar
radiation that may affect biological organisms. In the twentieth century the temperatures has elevated by about 0.6 degrees
Celsius than past centuries. Research on the tree rings and ice cores, established scientific data needed to demonstrate such trend of increasing
temperatures. As a result of temperature change, some oceanic coral reef ecosystems declined . The coastal
regions may be quickly submerged due to the rapid increase of sea levels, which estimated to increase 0.1 to 0.2
metres by the last century. This is considered catastrophic to some species and also diverse communities in the
ecotone. The past climatic changes lead to ecosystems with various species composition, due to species’
different capabilities to adapt to the climate changes .

Water bodies’ contamination by different pollutants (physical, biological, chemical and radioactive)
resulted from many sources (mining activities, industrial effluents, domestic sewage and agricultural
runoff) is considered a major threat to water biodiversity.40–42 Pollution causes many diseases and even
deaths all over the world but mostly in Asia and Africa. Visual water pollution may be caused by some physical
pollutants such as; temperature change .43 Different pathogenic pollutants were exuded by untreated sewage and
nuclear power plants produce radioactive matter pollution.44,45 There are two types of water pollutants
either point sources or non-point sources, both of them resulted from agriculture drains and sewage. 46–
49 It has been realized that pollution problems are pandemic and even some industrialized nations have proceeded in decreasing water
pollution from different sources such as industrial and domestic sources, [while] other pollution sources are growing, such as
chemical pollution, which act as important threats to water bodies.50,51

Overexploitation (especially, overfishing) is affecting greatly marine vertebrates (large vertebrates and
predators [such] as sharks and tuna that were seen decreasing).52 Overfishing of target species at law levels
may also basically affect ecosystems particularly when constituting a high ratio of biomass or related to
food webs.53 For example, sand eel and cod stocks have subjected to overexploitation in UK waters ,54 by the
effect being increased by synergism of sand eel overfishing and also range shift of copepod Calanus finmarchicus, which is considered a major
food for sand eel.55

No BioD impact — meta-analysis demonstrates slow pace and resilience.

Hance 18 Jeremy Hance at the Guardian, interviewing José M. Montoya from the Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique at the University Paul Sabatier and internally citing Ian Donohue from the School
of Natural Sciences at Trinity College Dublin and Stuart L. Pimm from the Nicholas School of the
Environment at Duke University. [Could biodiversity destruction lead to a global tipping point? 1-16-
2018, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/radical-conservation/2018/jan/16/biodiversity-
extinction-tipping-point-planetary-boundary]

But what’s arguably most fascinating about this event – known as the Permian-Triassic extinction or more poetically, the
Great Dying – is the fact that anything survived at all. Life, it seems, is so ridiculously adaptable that not only did
thousands of species make it through whatever killed off nearly everything (no one knows for certain though
theories abound) but, somehow, after millions of years life even recovered and went on to write new tales. Even as the Permian-Triassic
extinction event shows the fragility of life, it also proves its resilience in the long-term. The lessons of such mass extinctions
– five to date and arguably a sixth happening as I write – inform science today. Given that extinction levels are currently 1,000 (some even say
10,000) times the background rate, researchers have long worried about our current destruction of biodiversity – and what that may mean for
our future Earth and ourselves. In 2009, a group of researchers identified nine global boundaries for the planet that if passed could theoretically
push the Earth into an uninhabitable state for our species. These global boundaries include climate change, freshwater use, ocean acidification
and, yes, biodiversity loss (among others). The group has since updated the terminology surrounding biodiversity, now calling it “biosphere
integrity,” but that hasn’t spared it from critique. A paper last year in Trends in Ecology & Evolution scathingly attacked the idea of any global
biodiversity boundary. “It makes no sense that there exists a tipping point of biodiversity loss beyond which
the Earth will collapse,” said co-author and ecologist, José Montoya, with Paul Sabatier Univeristy in France. “There is no
rationale for this.” Montoya wrote the paper along with Ian Donohue, an ecologist at Trinity College in Ireland and Stuart Pimm, one of
the world’s leading experts on extinctions, with Duke University in the US. Montoya, Donohue and Pimm argue that there isn’t
evidence of a point at which loss of species leads to ecosystem collapse, globally or even locally. If the
planet didn’t collapse after the Permian-Triassic extinction event, it won’t collapse now – though our
descendants may well curse us for the damage we’ve done. Instead, according to the researchers, every loss of species counts. But the
damage is gradual and incremental, not a sudden plunge. Ecosystems, according to them, slowly degrade but
never fail outright. “Of more than 600 experiments of biodiversity effects on various functions, none showed
a collapse,” Montoya said. “In general, the loss of species has a detrimental effect on ecosystem functions...We progressively lose
pollination services, water quality, plant biomass, and many other important functions as we lose species. But we never observe a
critical level of biodiversity over which functions collapse. ”
 1nc — ag advantage
COVID thumps US ag — it’s non-unique because it lowered US exports by 3.5%.

No food wars.
Vestby ’18 [Vestby, Ida Rudolfsen, and Halvard Buhaug; 5-18-18; Doctoral Researcher at the Peace
Research Institute Oslo; doctoral researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research at
Uppsala University and PRIO; Research Professor at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO); Professor
of Political Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU); and Associate Editor
of the Journal of Peace Research and Political Geography; “Does hunger cause conflict?” Prio,
https://blogs.prio.org/ClimateAndConflict/2018/05/does-hunger-cause-conflict/]

It is perhaps surprising, then, that there is little

scholarly merit in the notion that a short-term reduction in access to food
increases the probability that conflict will break out. This is because to start or participate in violent conflict
requires people to have both the means and the will. Most people on the brink of starvation are not in
the position to resort to violence, whether against the government or other social groups. In fact, the urban middle classes tend to
be the most likely to protest against rises in food prices, since they often have the best opportunities, the most energy, and the best skills to
coordinate and participate in protests.

Accordingly, there is a widespread misapprehension that social unrest in periods of high food prices relates primarily to food shortages. In

reality, the sources of discontent are considerably more complex---linked to political structures, land
ownership, corruption, the desire for democratic reforms and general economic problems---where the
price of food is seen in the context of general increases in the cost of living. Research has shown that while the international

media have a tendency to seek simple resource-related explanations---such as drought or famine---for conflicts in the
Global South, debates in the local media are permeated by more complex political relationships.

No impact to “water shortages” outside of ag in the Dankova ev — powertagged! We

get new defense when they isolate a scenario.
 1nc — precedent advantage
No impact to the “administrative state” — Posner says it “keeps our water clean,
regulates financial markets, and protects workers” — WHAT is the terminal impact to
any of those?

Covid disproves the disease impact.

Disease doesn’t cause extinction.

Halstead 19 John Halstead, doctorate in political philosophy. [Cause Area Report: Existential Risk,
Founders Pledge, https://founderspledge.com/research/Cause%20Area%20Report%20-%20Existential
%20Risk.pdf]//BPS

However, there are some reasons to think that naturally occurring pathogens
are unlikely to cause human extinction. Firstly,
Homo sapiens have been around for 200,000 years and the Homo genus for around six million years without being
exterminated by an infectious disease, which is evidence that the base rate of extinction-risk natural
pathogens is low.82 Indeed, past disease outbreaks have not come close to rendering humans extinct. Although
bodies were piled high in the streets across Europe during the Black Death,83 human extinction was never a serious possibility, and some
economists even argue that it was a boon for the European economy.84 Secondly, infectious disease has only
contributed to the extinction of a small minority of animal species.85 The only confirmed case of a
mammalian species extinction being caused by an infectious disease is a type of rat native only to Christmas
Island. Having said that, the context may be importantly different for modern day humans, so it is unclear whether the risk is increasing or
decreasing. On the one hand, due to globalisation, the world is more interconnected making it easier for pathogens to spread. On the other
hand, interconnectedness
could also increase immunity by increasing exposure to lower virulence strains
between subpopulations.87 Moreover, advancements in medicine and sanitation limit the potential damage
an outbreak might do.

Squo solves the disease internal link — antibiotic use in livestock is declining.
Dall 18 – News Reporter | CIDRAP News
Chris, 12/19. “FDA reports major drop in antibiotics for food animals.”
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2018/12/fda-reports-major-drop-antibiotics-food-
animals

New data released yesterday by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) show that the amount of medically important
antibiotics sold for use in food-producing animals in the United States is on the decline.

The FDA report shows that domestic

sales and distribution of medically important antibiotics for use in livestock
decreased by 33% from 2016 through 2017, and by 43%

MARKED

since sales peaked in 2015. Since 2009, the first year the FDA started collecting and reporting the data, sales have declined
by 28%. The totals represent only sales and distribution data and don't reflect how the drugs were used in animals.
The 2017 summary report is the first issued since the FDA's new rules on the use of medically important antibiotics in food-animal production
were fully implemented. Under Guidance for Industry (GFI) #213, which went into effect Jan 1, 2017, antibiotics that are important for human
medicine can no longer be used for growth promotion or feed efficiency in cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and other food animals.

In addition, 95% of the medically important antibiotics used in animal water and feed for therapeutic purposes now require
veterinary oversight and can no longer be purchased over the counter.

FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said he's encouraged by the sales trends reflected in the report.

"These reductions are an indication that our ongoing efforts to support antimicrobial stewardship are
having a significant impact," Gottlieb said in a statement.
Use declines in all animals

The clearest impact is on sales of antibiotics used for growth promotion, which dropped from 5.7 million
kilograms (kg) in 2016 to 0 kg in 2017. Over-the-counter sales declined dramatically as well, from 8 million kg in 2016 to 271,280 kg in
2017.

There was also a decrease in most of the medically important drug classes sold for use in food-producing
animals. Tetracyclines, which account for nearly two thirds of all antibiotics sold for use in livestock, fell by 40% compared with 2016, while
sales of aminoglycosides, penicillins, and macrolides dropped by 19%, 18%, and 15%, respectively. Sales of fluoroquinolone antibiotics,
however, increased by 24%.

Public health and animal medicine consultant Gail Hansen, DVM, said the reductions don't surprise her, given that 2017
was the first
year that medically important antibiotics weren't allowed to be sold for growth promotion or feed
efficiency.

"Overall, this
is good news on the antibiotic stewardship front ," Hansen told CIDRAP News. "It shows the FDA guidance
was successful in reducing the amount of antibiotics sold , without an increase in animal health or food safety problems
during that time."

Among the food-animal groups, the largest decline in antibiotic sales was seen in chickens. The 47% decrease from 2016 to 2017 is likely linked
to the poultry industry's consumer-driven shift to raising chicken without medically important antibiotics. But sales of medically important
antibiotics also dropped by 35% in cows, 35% pork in pigs, and 11% in turkeys.

Overall, medically important antibiotics account for 51% of the antibiotics sold for use on food animals. The other 49% are antibiotics that
aren't used in human medicine.
2nc
 T
True for water protection.
Interreg 18 --- Italy - Croatia CBC Programme, “iDEAL - DEcision support for Adaptation pLan”,
European Regional Development Fund, December 2018,
https://www.italy-croatia.eu/documents/107398/1753358/4.1.2+A+report+on+selected+indicators.pdf/
4ed35df4-f413-875f-c5ad-7d12dc504bfa?t=1587993039363

the term “water protection” means the set of water bodies under protection i.e. where it is not possible to
carry out human activities, which are set up by the strategies/actions/projects/plants implementation

Matanich says “cessation of use” — that means all use — their explanation makes
them extra t.
CJS 78 (Corpus Juris Secundum, 67, p. 200)
Of: The word "of" is a preposition. It is a word of different meanings, and susceptible of numerous different connotations. It may be used
in its possessive sense to denote possession or ownership. It may also be used as a word of identification and relation, rather than as a word of
proprietorship or possession. "Of" may denote source, origin, existence, descent, or location, or it may denote that from which something
issues, proceeds, or is derived. The term may indicate the aggregate or whole of which the limited word or words denote a part,
or of which a part is referred to, thought of, affected, etc.
 States CP
The federal government is distinct from state governments.
WEBSTER'S 76 NEW INTERNATIONAL DICTIONARY UNABRIDGED, p. 833.
Federal government. Of or relating to the central government of a nation , having the character of a federation as
distinguished from the governments of the constituent unites (as states or provinces).

Legal Dictionary goes neg — they’re separate entities. Inserted, RM is pink.

Legal Dictionary 16 [Federal Government. August 7, 2016. https://legaldictionary.net/federal-
government/]

Definition of Federal Government

Noun

A system of government in which power is divided between a central, larger government, and the
local, regional, or state governments beneath it.

Legally, CWA is a baseline. States can exceed to regulate ANY pollutant.

Schiff ’18 — Damien Schiff, Senior Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation; (2018; “KEEPING THE CLEAN
WATER ACT COOPERATIVELY FEDERAL—OR, WHY THE CLEAN WATER ACT DOES NOT DIRECTLY
REGULATE GROUNDWATER POLLUTION”; University of Michigan Libraries, Hein Online; William & Mary
Environmental Law and Policy Review, Vol. 42, Issue 2; //LFS—JCM)

Despite this federally heavy-handed approach, the Act still adheres even within its direct regulatory provisions to a
policy of allowing the states to take an important role in water quality control.53 That policy is furthered most
clearly through the Act’s permitting transfer provisions.54 Although Congress has followed that approach in other statutes,55 the practice is by
no means universal or a default.56 Thus, Congress’ decision to give the power to wield significant federal permitting
authority with respect to controlling water pollution reflects its particular concern “to recognize, preserve, and
protect the primary responsibilities and rights of States to prevent, reduce, and eliminate pollution,” as
well as “to plan the development and use . . . of land and water resources.”57

Such solicitude for the states’ prerogatives is not, however, limited to the Act’s direct regulatory provisions.
As noted above, the Clean Water Act’s central prohibition makes unlawful “the discharge of any pollutant by any person.”58 Because
“discharge of a pollutant” is in turn expressly defined as “any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source,”59 the Act
by necessary implication leavesto the states to regulate (or not to regulate) the addition of any pollutant to
things other than “navigable waters,” or the addition of any pollutant from a “nonpoint source.”60 These inferred limitations on
federal power—especially that pertaining to nonpoint source pollution—also bear witness to the cooperative federalism
framework embodied in the Act.61
 Precedent Advantage
Here’s ABR defense.
Smith 17—former R&D director at MicroPhage and SomaLogic (Drew, “Can A Superbug Cause A Global
Pandemic?,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/02/10/can-a-superbug-cause-a-global-
pandemic/#3cb04e2c59aa,)

Death rates from bacterial infections dropped over 90% from historic levels before the introduction of penicillin. Sanitation and
vaccines are far more effective methods to control bacterial infections than antibiotics ever were or ever
will be. Boring old soap and water, filtration, bleach, and alcohol kill superbugs just fine. None of these
things are in short supply. The acquisition of multiple drug resistances generally (but not always) causes
bacteria to become a bit less fit and unable to infect otherwise healthy adults. The victim of this particular
superbug was in her seventies and had been in and out of hospitals for over a year. This is a fairly typical profile for victims of multi-drug
resistant bacteria. The
worst-case scenario, if we continue to abuse and overuse antibiotics in feedlots and
hospitals, is that these bugs will pick up compensatory mutations and become more virulent. Many fairly
routine procedures - chemotherapy, thoracic and orthopedic surgery - will become much more risky. But the risk will still
be largely confined to hospitalized patients. MDR bacteria are extremely unlikely to cause a global
pandemic on the scale of the 1919 influenza or AIDS epidemics, so long as we continue to provide clean food and
water to the public.

The most generous probability estimate is…0.02 events in the next century! Inserting
chart below (and that estimate is found in Model 1):
Millett & Piers 17 Piers Millett, PhD, is a Senior Research Fellow, & Andrew Snyder-Beattie, MS, is
Director of Research; both at the University of Oxford, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford. [Existential
Risk and Cost-Effective Biosecurity, Health Secur. 15(4), 373–383,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5576214/]//BPS
 Pollution Advantage
Here’s ev.
Elias et al. 21 — Michaela Elias, M.A., Earth Systems, Stanford University; Ehud Eiran, senior lecturer
at the University of Haifa, visiting scholar in political science at Stanford University; Aron M. Troen,
associate professor of nutrition science and policy at the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture Food and
Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; (January 23rd 2021; “No Bread, No Peace; National
security experts need to put food back on the table as a core issue”; Foreign Policy;
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/23/food-hunger-national-security-issue-instability/; //LFS—JCM)

Finally, thecoronavirus pandemic has shown, at least initially, that food supply chains are more vulnerable than
many expected. The pandemic led to price fluctuations that the United States, for instance, had not seen since the
1970s. The Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that egg prices as measured by the producer price index increased by more than 50
percent between February and April 2020, and then dropped by 40 percent in May. And the prices of imported animal
products, including meat and poultry, rose by 20 percent between March and June 2020. In December 2020, British supermarkets
warned of potential shortage of fruit and vegetables, as France halted traffic across the Channel in response to reports
about the COVID-19 mutation spreading in Britain. Meanwhile, less developed countries have experienced even sharper
rises in food prices. In South Sudan, for example, prices of staples like wheat and cassava have surged since
February 2020 by 62 percent and 41 percent, respectively, and in Kenya, the price of maize has risen by 60 percent since 2019.
These increases in staple prices create conditions for social instability. 
1nr
 Court DA
Overpopulation depletes water supply---pollution, toxification, and disease follow.
Baus ’17 [Doris; February 2017; M.A. candidate at the City University of New York, advised by
Professor Sophia Perdikaris; CUNY Academic Works, “Overpopulation and the Impact on the
Environment,” https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2929&context=gc_etds]

The growth of global population resulted in the pressure on water, the only valuable resource that has
a finite rate of supply (Dodds 26). In the past half of the century, humans used one half of the resource
which signifies that a strict amount will remain available in the next half of the century . Water will no longer
be available for indirect uses, such as watering the golf courses or filling up swimming pools, and many species may become extinct in severely
dry areas, like Phoenix or Las Vegas (Dodds 26). The
impact will be dreadful in developing countries that rely on
water for crops to fight persistent malnutrition and starvation. Nevertheless, the shortage of water is
already experienced worldwide, as “more than one-third of all people on Earth live in areas where water is in short supply, and 1.7
billion people reside in regions where chronic water shortages hinder crop production and economic development” (Dodds 26). In India’s fourth
largest city, Madras, people have to line up at public taps from 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM in order to get water (Stefoff 64). In Africa, women walk for
miles every day and carry jugs of water (Stefoff 64). Approximately one billion people still have no access to drinking water today (Dodds 26).

The demand for water increases faster than the population itself. “Between 1950 and 1980, worldwide water use
more than tripled; in the United States it increased by 150% during that 30- year period, although the country’s population grew by only 50%”
(Stefoff 57). In 1990, each day an American family of four would use 243 gallons of water, which nationally equaled to 400 billion gallons of
water per day (Stefoff 57). There are three fundamental ways that people use water. Most of beliefs are grounded on the argument that
domestic use, which implies drinking, cooking, bathing, washing, and sanitation, is the biggest factor of insufficiency. Others contend that
industries use water beyond an acceptable level to power plants and cool or clean processes in them, but the biggest factors of all is the use of
water in agriculture for irrigation, which “accounts for 73% of all fresh water use around the world and for more than 80% of water use in the
United States” (Stefoff 57-58). Irrigation is a very sensitive process, in which an adequate amount of water is necessary to combat salinization of
the soil, but at the same time to prevent fertilizers and pesticides spilling into aquatic habitats (Stefoff 58).

The consequence of water shortage is evident in the draining of the Nile, the Yellow, and the Colorado
rivers, which are have almost no water to spill into the sea. Nonetheless, in the United States the government built dams that would supply
water to the farmers in the West at a price under its real cost. “For example, in 1981 the U.S. Government Accounting Office reported that
farmers who grew cattle feed with water from a $500 million project near Pueblo, Colorado, were paying seven cents for a quantity of water
that cost $54 to produce” (Stefoff 59). Meanwhile, United Nations World Health Organization reported that about
80% of human
diseases are related to unsafe drinking water and substandard sanitation (Stefoff 59-60). The water is
contaminated and polluted with human waste, which forms bacterial illnesses, such as cholera, polio,
and infectious hepatitis, but it also contains parasites and toxic chemicals that lead to cancer and
neurological diseases (Stefoff 60).

The fact that population growth is exceeding total amount of water available proves the slow process
of water replenishing in groundwater sources, or aquifers, that are almost considered nonrenewable sources. Underground
reservoirs have been filling for over a thousand years by the rainfall cycle, but nowadays most of them are
empty and contaminated. An example of increased demand on wells is the Gaza Strip , located between Israel
and Egypt, where the aquifer has been half emptied (Stefoff 63). As the fresh water became depleted, salty
water from the Mediterranean Sea entered the well and left it contaminated. Not only are humans
excessively taking away natural sources necessary for their survival , they are also destroying habitats
of animals.
AND causes war and civilizational collapse — external and distinct.
Smail ’17 [Kenneth; Summer 2017; Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Department of Anthropology,
Kenyon College; The Social Contract, “The ‘Malthusian Dilemma’ Revisited: Excessive human numbers in
a world of finite limits,” vol. 27]
More than half a century ago, at the dawn of the nuclear age, Albert Einstein suggested that we shall require a new manner of thinking, if
humankind is to survive. Even
though the aptly named “population explosion” is neither as instantaneous nor as
spectacular as its nuclear counterpart, its ultimate consequences may be just as real (and potentially just
as devastating) as the so-called “nuclear winter” scenarios promulgated in the early 1980s (Turco et al. 1983).

That there will be a large-scale reduction in global human numbers over the next two or more centuries
appears to be inevitable. The primary issue may well be whether this lengthy and difficult process will be
moderately benign or unpredictably chaotic. More specifically, is modern humanity capable of a
comprehensive organized effort to compassionately reduce global human numbers, or will brutal self-
interest prevail—either haphazardly or selectively—resulting in an unprecedented toll of human lives,
not to mention the growing likelihood of a global civilizational collapse? Clearly we must begin our “new
manner of thinking” about this critically important issue now, so that Einstein’s prescient and very legitimate concerns about
human and civilizational survival into the twenty-first century and beyond may be addressed as rapidly, as fully, and
as humanely as possible.

3 — US Courts
Elizabeth B. Fata, 12-1-2015, [attorney at Cozen O’Connor, "Actions and Reactions: The Evolution of
Environmental Common Law and Judicial Activism in India and the United States", University of Miami
International and Comparative Law Review, https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1237&context=umiclr //Weese]

On the other hand, in

the U.S., the much slower change and milder judicial activism has mostly avoided
provoking distrust from the other branches of government and the U.S. people. The U.S. courts have taken much
less of a pro-environment and pro-human rights position in their opinions, but they have also been lacking the same
environmental and human rights pressure to do so. Significantly more proficient legislation has spared the courts from having to
take a highly activist role. Stability, a lack of recent political turmoil, and a nearly 250-year-old Constitution have resulted in a more consistent
government, and provided courts the luxury of generally maintaining the status quo. The limited activism that the courts chose to deliver
has proven relatively helpful for the environmental movement and was accomplished without causing any major governmental
instability. Courts were able to lean on strong legislation and the knowledge that that legislation would be enforced. In the long run, the
slower move of U.S. courts to facilitate environmental protection certainly provides the least turmoil.
But at the same time, will it ever sufficiently embrace the true value of the environment or acknowledge its interconnectedness? With a rapidly
changing climate, and limited time to reverse the trend, this halfhearted attitude towards a life-sustaining resource may prove to be our
downfall.

Doesn’t thump the swing vote, institutionalism or the outcome of Dobbs.

Gass 10-3’ — Henry Gass, Staff Writer, CS Monitor; (October 3rd 2021; “The one case that could define
the Supreme Court’s term – and legacy”; CS Monitor;
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2021/1003/The-one-case-that-could-define-the-Supreme-
Court-s-term-and-legacy; //LFS—JCM)

But the Supreme Court has still upheld the core right to abortion, always with a conservative justice
joining his liberal colleagues. In a 5-3 ruling in 2016, Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the majority in striking
down a Texas abortion regulation, with Chief Justice John Roberts dissenting. Then, last year, Chief Justice
Roberts voted to strike down a Louisiana law almost identical to the Texas one – though he emphasized that,
while he was now bound by the 2016 ruling, he still disagreed with it.

Thus, when the court holds oral argument in Dobbs in December, Chief Justice Roberts will be watched closest,
most experts agree. If he’s in the majority , he decides who writes the opinion, “and with that power he can
assign narrower-crafted opinions,” says Professor Huq. Enough of his colleagues have been attracted to these
narrower opinions in the past to form a majority, note court watchers, including in high-profile cases last term on
religious liberty and the Affordable Care Act. “There is now a six-justice majority to overrule Roe,” adds
Professor Huq, “but there’s differences over timing and pace and the way of achieving that .”

Gun rights, death penalty also on docket

Dobbs will not be the only significant case the justices hear this term.

For over a decade the court had avoided hearing a gun rights case, but in November the court will hear a challenge to a New York restriction on
concealed carry permits that could see gun restrictions loosened nationwide. October and November will also bring major cases on death
penalty jurisprudence – including an appeal from Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – and state funding for religious schools.

Yet for this term, the court still only has 41 cases on its merits docket – the cases that are heard in full during the year – according to
SCOTUSblog. While it has issued its smallest number of merits decisions since the Civil War in the past two terms – 56 and 53, respectively –
there could still be some major petitions taken up for next year. (The justices are currently deciding whether to hear a challenge to Harvard
University’s affirmative action policy, for example.)

And all that doesn’t even account for actions the court could take on its increasingly busy “shadow docket” – petitions the justices decide on an
emergency basis with limited briefing and no oral argument. High-profile issues like vaccine mandates and changes to state voting laws could all
end up before the justices, either on the merits or shadow dockets, before the term ends next summer.

Indeed, it
was a controversial month of shadow docket activity that preceded the justices’ public reassurances
about the court’s institutional integrity. In quick succession this summer, the court issued brief orders that halted the
federal government’s pandemic-related eviction moratorium, required the Biden administration to reinstate a Trump-era immigration policy,
and allowed a Texas law effectively banning abortion in the state to remain in effect pending appeals.

Judicial philosophies versus partisan politics Justice Stephen Breyer, in interviews last month while promoting his new book, called
the
court’s Texas abortion decision “very, very, very wrong.” But the Clinton appointee – and oldest member of the high
court – has also defended his colleagues as responsible jurists who decide cases based on judicial philosophies,
not partisan affiliations. “There are many jurisprudential differences” on the court, Justice Breyer told CNN last month.
“It isn’t really right to say that it’s political in the ordinary sense of politics .” A week earlier, the court’s newest
member, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, made a similar claim in a speech in Louisville, Kentucky. The high court isn’t “a
bunch of partisan hacks,” she said at an event for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Louisville Courier Journal reported.
“Judicial philosophies are not the same as political parties.”

Others skeptical that the court has become politicized point to recent high-profile rulings where the
court bucked expectations of conservative victories, such as when it upheld “Obamacare” last year and
voted to not shield President Trump’s tax returns. “None of those things came to pass,” said Roman
Martinez, a lawyer at Latham & Watkins and a former clerk for Chief Justice Roberts and then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh , at
the Georgetown Law event. “If you talk to people on the right ,” he added, “you will see a lot of frustration with the

court, that they haven’t acted in a way the politics would suggest.” Whether this term will yield similar
surprises remains to be seen, but one member of the court’s liberal wing recently voiced her own frustrations at
decisions the court reaches. “There is going to be a lot of disappointment in the law, a huge amount,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor last week, at
an event hosted by the American Bar Association. “Look at me. Look at my dissents.”
A frequent dissenter to the court’s conservative opinions, she added that they help her “explain how I feel.” But other justices prefer different
approaches, she explained, such as Justice Elena Kagan, another member of the court’s liberal wing. “Justice Kagan believes that the best way
to influence the majority is to try to narrow their holdings, to try to figure out how to keep the impact of a holding as narrow as possible,” said
Justice Sotomayor. That way, she continued, there will be a pathway later to “change the direction of a bad ruling.”

In the case of Dobbs, the question is whether the court as an institution can weather the damage of transforming abortion law in
the U.S., given that a majority of Americans favor some abortion rights and several generations of women have grown up
expecting a constitutional right to bodily autonomy. For the term as a whole, the overarching question is
whether narrow rulings are possible after the court has chosen to confront major constitutional
questions they have reinforced – or, in the case of gun rights, avoided – for decades. “The court’s legitimacy rests on
showing the public that a change in personnel doesn’t mean a dramatic change of law,” said Farah Peterson, a
professor at the University of Chicago Law School and a former clerk for Justice Breyer, during a preview event in September.

It also doesn’t thump the internal link. They’re different cases.

Bohra 10-5’ — Neelam Bohra; (October 5th 2021; “Texas has all but banned abortion. But a
Mississippi law could be what ends Roe v. Wade.”; The Texas Tribune;
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/10/05/texas-mississippi-abortion-laws-supreme-court/; //LFS—
JCM)

Courts haven’t blocked Texas’ more restrictive law in the same way, because the state doesn’t enforce
it. Instead, the law relies on private citizens to enforce the law by suing providers and others who help Texans access abortions. Legal
experts say the court is likely to make a narrower ruling, rather than overturning Roe v. Wade , which
means it could strike down the Mississippi ban without touching Texas’ law at all. If the court were to
overturn Roe, however, it could lead “trigger laws” across 12 states — including Texas — that ban all abortions to
go into effect. The uncertainty around access to abortion in Texas partially stems from the unprecedented makeup of
the high court, which is the most conservative it has been since at least the 1930s, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional
law professor at South Texas College of Law. “The [Mississippi] case is a promising opportunity for the pro-life
movement to have the biggest Supreme Court win since 1973,” said John Seago, legislative director for anti-abortion group Texas Right to
Life. “We are optimistic.” The Center for Reproductive Rights is representing both Texas and Mississippi abortion providers in their cases. The
court will hear oral arguments on Dec. 1 for the Mississippi case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,
but the ruling may not come out until June.
State Innovation Exchange, a progressive advocacy group, submitted a filing with almost 900 state lawmakers from across the country,
including Texas, in support of upholding Roe v. Wade. “Previously, amicus briefs have had a sway with the courts,” said
Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights for State Innovation Exchange. “But the makeup of the court looks
completely different, and we’re just in a different time. It’s just harder to say what the amicus brief’s impact will do.” State Rep. Jasmine
Crockett, a Dallas Democrat who was among the lawmakers supporting Roe, said the culmination of threats against abortion protections has
made her nervous. “A lot of things we do as lawyers, many lawmakers and even activists is we look for clues,” she said. “The
Supreme Court really gave us a terrible clue of where their interest lies right when they decided not to
stop the imposition of [Senate Bill 8].”

On Thursday, conservative Supreme Court Justice

Samuel Alito Jr. defended the court’s refusal to block the Texas law
while stressing
that the action was not tantamount to a rejection of Roe v. Wade. “Put aside the false and
inflammatory claim that we nullified Roe v. Wade,” Alito said in a speech at the University of Notre Dame. “We did no
such thing. And we said that expressly in our order.” Texas abortion providers have continuously asked the Supreme Court
to block the law’s enforcement, but so far, it has denied their appeals. “In allowing that ban to go into effect earlier this month, the Supreme
Court was clear that it was not ruling on the merits,” said Jenny Ma, a senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, in a written
statement. “It is hard to say how a decision in [the Mississippi case] may impact Texas. ... Anti-abortion politicians
designed the Texas law this way to try to insulate it from federal court review.”

Despite liberal pandemonium, the Court was ultimately correct in rejecting emergency
constitutional interpretation. Op-eds just wish the Court made shit up.
Josh Blackman 21, constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston, 9/3/2021,
“New Op-Ed in Newsweek: The Supreme Court Could Not "Block" Texas's Fetal Heartbeat Law,”
https://reason.com/volokh/2021/09/03/new-op-ed-in-newsweek-the-supreme-court-could-not-block-
texass-fetal-heartbeat-law/, Stras
Today, Newsweek published my column, The Supreme Court Could Not "Block" Texas's Fetal Heartbeat Law. In about a thousand words, I try to
debunk every false accounting of Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson–and there have been many.

Here is the introduction:

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined to intervene in a challenge to S.B. 8, Texas's new abortion law. This unique statute
empowers private citizens to sue those who perform or facilitate abortions. President Biden ripped the 5-4 decision, charging that
the conservative Justices followed "procedural complexities" "rather than use its supreme authority to ensure justice." Biden
is
wrong. The Court has no majestic power to "ensure justice." Indeed, it is a myth that courts can
"strike down" laws. Rather, judges have a very limited power: to prevent specific government
officials from enforcing laws against specific people. The judiciary cannot simply erase statutes
from the book. And when the government plays no role in enforcing a statute–like with S.B. 8–
courts cannot "block" that law from going into effect. In future cases, the courts can assess the
constitutionality of S.B. 8. For now, the Supreme Court was right to reject the premature
challenge.
And from the conclusion:

Why, then, did the dissenters offer a remedy that simply could not be granted? This quartet
endorsed President Biden's mythical account of the Supreme Court. At least three of the four dissenters
deeply felt that this law was unjust, so there must be a way to stop it. But not every wrong has
a remedy in federal court. In time, actual Texans will file suit against abortion clinics, and those
who fund the organizations. And the courts can then decide if those suits are consistent with
Roe v. Wade. For now, the Supreme Court was right to stay on the sidelines.
If you think my conclusion is hyperbole, read Noah Feldman's new column. He writes that the Court "made a point that is incorrect in my view,
but that is legally plausible." Why was it incorrect? Feldman explains, "The better view is that the court should have been creative and found a
way to block the law anyway." And why should the Court have gotten creative? Feldman writes, "if the underlying law is
unconstitutional and injures basic rights, the courts must have the power to block its operation." If there is a really bad law, the usual rules of
jurisdiction can be ignored, because the court "must" be able to do something about it. I always appreciate Feldman's candor. He says aloud
what others are thinking. Unfortunately, telling courts to be "creative" is to tell courts to–pardon my French–"make shit
up."

I have yet to see anyone explain how a case that involves a single named judge could be used to block
the enforcement of a law by hundreds of judges statewide, who have no role in enforcing the law. For
good reason, Roberts does not explain how his injunction would work. None of the dissenters can. Justice
Breyer's proposals make no sense at all. I am grateful Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett stuck to first principles.
Texas law’s constitutionality will be decided by Dobbs, NOT the other way around.
Jonathan Turley 21, Law Professor at George Washington University, 9/6/2021, “The Appeal of Chaos:
How Politicians and Pundits are Misconstruing the Supreme Court’s Order on the Texas Abortion Law,”
https://jonathanturley.org/2021/09/06/the-appeal-of-chaos-how-politicians-and-pundits-are-
misconstruing-the-supreme-courts-order-on-the-texas-abortion-law/, Stras

It also is untrue that the court’s decision prevents the law from being challenged. The law can — and will — be
challenged in both state and federal courts. (Indeed, it has already been enjoined by a state judge). If
anyone seeks to use this law, it will be challenged and likely expedited on review. Moreover, lower courts
are likely to find the law unconstitutional under existing law.
The law’s drafters knew that setting the cutoff date before “viability” would conflict with the case law building on Roe v. Wade and Planned
Parenthood v. Casey. It was designed to force a new review by the Supreme Court, the only body that can set aside or reverse its prior rulings.

Future abortion rights do not run through Texas or Congress. Challenges to the Texas law will take months.
But the most immediate threat to Roe is already on the docket. When Texas was enacting its law in May,
the Supreme Court accepted a Mississippi case with a fundamental challenge in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health
Organization. The case was accepted for one unambiguous question: “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are
unconstitutional.” That case will allow the court a direct, clear case to reconsider the basis for abortion. The final decision in Dobbs
will likely long precede any final decision on Texas’s law.

Conservative majority is wrong---centrists have followed Roberts to project a

politically neutral court.
Dwyer ’21 [Devin; June 29; Journalist; ABC News, “Supreme Court defies critics with wave of
unanimous decisions,” https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-defies-critics-wave-unanimous-
decisions/story?id=78463255]

The opening term of the most conservative Supreme Court in a generation was supposed to bring an
eruption of pent-up ideological rage. Instead, it's closing with astonishing bonhomie.

The rushed confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett in October, which solidified the court's 6-3 majority of
Republican-appointees, raised hopes on the right and fears on left of an imminent blow to Obamacare, rollback of
abortion rights and downgrade of LGBTQ equality in the name of religious freedom.

"Many people expected that it would be a bunch of six to three decisions with Justice Barrett replacing the late
Justice (Ruth Bader) Ginsburg," said Jeffrey Rosen, constitutional law professor and president of the National Constitution Center. "But
that's not what happened."

The nine justices have charted a surprising course down the middle in 2021, handing down more
unanimous opinions than any time in at least the last seven years.

An ABC News analysis found 67%

of the court's opinions in cases argued during the term that ends this month have been
unanimous or near-unanimous with just one justice dissenting.

That compares to just 46% of unanimous or near-unanimous decisions during the 2019 term and the 48% average
unanimous decision rate of the past decade, according to SCOTUSblog.

"The new justices -- Justices (Brett) Kavanaugh and Barrett -- decided to join Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice
(Stephen) Breyer as well as Justice (Elena) Kagan in the project of bipartisan unanimity," said Rosen.
"Roberts has said that was his goal ever since he became chief, but he acknowledged that it was up to his
colleagues about whether or not it would work."

While the court still has five cases pending -- decisions that are likely to be fractured -- the show of consensus this year will
remain well above average regardless of their outcome.

"There's no question in my mind that the justices have worked very hard to issue unanimous or near-unanimous
rulings this term," said former Supreme Court clerk and Cardozo law professor Kate Shaw, who is also an ABC News contributor. "The
justices pride themselves on standing outside of the world of politics, and they're
well aware that the court was the subject of a great deal of political attention over the last year."

Barrett’s the swing on abortion---she’ll stick to precedent now, but it could flip.
Hurley ’21 [Lawrence and Andrew Chung; July 2; Columnists; Reuters, “Analysis: Barrett finds own
voice at center of conservative U.S. Supreme Court,” https://www.reuters.com/world/us/barrett-finds-
own-voice-center-conservative-us-supreme-court-2021-07-02/]
Next term Looms

Major cases await Barrett in the court's next term beginning in October. Her vote could be crucial in cases
that could curb abortion rights and expand the right to carry a gun outside the home.

Based on her first term, some court

observers have suggested that it now has something of a 3-3-3 split between
liberals, conservatives willing to compromise and the more hardline conservatives. Voting statistics
appear to bear that out. Barrett, Kavanaugh and Roberts were the three justices most often in the
majority in the rulings during the term, according to statistics maintained by SCOTUS blog.

Pratik Shah, a Washington lawyer who also has argued cases before the justices, said there
is evidence that Barrett and
Kavanaugh have sought compromises but questioned whether that would hold true in the long term.

"To me, the jury is still very much out on Justice Barrett," Shah added, noting that the conservative majority is likely to remain
for years and has no need to act quickly.

During her confirmation fight, some critics on the left cited Barrett's devout Catholic beliefs and conservative
scholarly writings to forecast that she would readily overturn court precedent and endanger recognized
personal rights such as abortion. Instead, Barrett in some key cases chose a different path than her most
conservative colleagues.

On June 17, the justices unanimously ruled against Philadelphia for barring a Catholic agency from participating
in the city's foster care program because it refused to consider same-sex couples as foster parents . The ruling could
open the door to discrimination against LGBT people by religiously based social service agencies.

But six justices including Barrett rejected a call to go further and overturn a 1990 Supreme Court
precedent, known as Employment Division v. Smith, that upholds laws that are neutral and generally applicable
even if they happen to place a burden on religion. Barrett , in a separate opinion, wrote that she sees "no
reason to decide in this case whether Smith should be overruled, much less what should replace it."

Mark Rienzi, a lawyer with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty legal group, said Barrett's writings on religious issues have
shown "she is a careful thinker who takes the job seriously."
In one of several decisions in favor of religious challenges to pandemic-related restrictions, Barrett wrote a separate opinion in February
rejecting a California church's bid to lift a state prohibition on singing and chanting during services. The church, Barrett wrote, did not
demonstrate that it was entitled to such relief. Gorsuch, Thomas and Alito disagreed with her on that point.

Barrett was in the majority in a 7-2 ruling on June 17 against a Republican-led bid to strike down the
Obamacare healthcare law. During her Senate confirmation hearings, some Democrats warned that she would vote to strike down the law
if confirmed.

She wrote four rulings in cases argued during the term and three dissents. In
another example of the court ruling not along
ideological lines, Barrett authored a 6-3 decision on June 3 limiting the scope of a computer-fraud law,
joined by the court's three liberals as well as Trump's two other appointees, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.

Kavanaugh will follow Roberts and deliver a centrist ruling on Roe---that’s reliant on
avoiding polarizing decisions.
Stohr ’20 [Greg; September 23; Reporter; Bloomberg, “Kavanaugh Emerges as Man-in-the-Middle with
Supreme Court Set to Shift Right,” https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-23/kavanaugh-
emerges-as-unlikely-liberal-hope-for-court-swing-vote]

In other areas, Kavanaugh has emerged

as more of a centrist and an incrementalist than fellow Trump appointee
Gorsuch. Kavanaugh has agreed with Roberts more than with any other justice so far, according to
statistics compiled by Scotusblog.
Abortion Opinion

When he voted in favor of a Louisiana abortion regulation this year, Kavanaugh wrote separately to
underscore that he wasn’t offering an ultimate verdict on the law. Doctors were challenging a requirement that they
get privileges at a local hospital, and Kavanaugh said they hadn’t yet proven they would be unable to obtain those rights.

“In my view, additional factfinding is necessary to properly evaluate Louisiana’s law,” he wrote. Kavanaugh
had previously urged
his colleagues in a private memo to sidestep the abortion dispute, CNN’s Joan Biskupic reported in July.

Kavanaugh has also suggested he is less willing than Gorsuch to overturn the court’s past decisions, says
David Strauss, a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago School of Law. That could prove important when the
court is inevitably asked to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion
nationwide.

“Justice Kavanaugh is more committed to what you might call traditional judging -- following precedent,
deferring to the political branches, doing what Congress wanted to do even if it didn’t express itself
perfectly,” Strauss said. “Justice Gorsuch is more inclined just to reject positions that he thinks are wrong.”
Health-Care Fight

Kavanaugh has proven reluctant to throw out an entire statute just because one part is unconstitutional. That will be a central issue when the
court on Nov. 10 takes up a Trump-backed bid to throw out the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

“Constitutional litigation is not a game of gotcha against Congress, where litigants can ride a discrete constitutional flaw in a statute to take
down the whole, otherwise constitutional statute,” Kavanaugh wrote in July in a case involving the federal ban on robocalls to mobile phones.

Ginsburg’s Death Injects New Doubt Into Fate of Obamacare

In other areas of the law as well, Kavanaugh has shied away from absolutist positions. This year he joined a 6-
3 decision that said the Clean Water Act applied to some pollution discharges that don’t go directly into a major body of water. In 2019 he
joined Roberts and the liberals in halting the death sentence of a man unless he was allowed to have a Buddhist spiritual adviser in the death
chamber with him.

And afterthe court heard its first gun-rights case in a decade last year, Kavanaugh joined Roberts and the
liberals by voting to drop the case because New York City and the state of New York changed the handgun-transportation laws that
were being challenged.

Kavanaugh, however, later said the court should have heard a challenge to a New Jersey law that requires people to show a “justifiable need”
to get a carry permit.

Court’s Legitimacy

All that could leave Kavanaugh as an occasional, if not frequent, supporter of Roberts’s efforts to protect
the court’s institutional legitimacy by trying to avoid polarizing rulings.
Kavanaugh isn’t likely to change his approach just because the court gets a new member, said Helgi Walker, a
Washington lawyer with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and a former law clerk to Thomas.

“I think he has a firm jurisprudence of his own, and he’s committed to what he believes is the right
approach, and I don’t see changes in the composition of the court changing his course,” Walker said.
But a new justice could put Kavanaugh in a different position, forcing him to decide whether conservatives will accomplish long-sought legal
goals, or at least how quickly.

“There was some speculation when Justice Kavanaugh was appointed that he would give the chief ‘cover’ by
voting with him when he agreed with the liberals in 5-4 cases,” Strauss said. “That didn’t happen very much
last term, but if there is a real threat to the court, I can see that changing.”

Thumpers are snapshots, not trends---overall court politics are in ideological

alignment.
Barnes ’21 [Robert; July 2; Reporter covering the U.S. Supreme Court; Washington Post, “Barrett
moves Supreme Court to the right, but cautiously,”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-barrett-first-term/
2021/07/02/34b576a6-da63-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html]

If the right wing of the court is sometimes fragmented, the term’s decision-making ended Thursday with a
burst of partisan acrimony over voting rights that held true to the court’s 6-to-3 ideological divide.
The court’s conservatives, all nominated by Republican presidents, interpreted a key section of the Voting Rights Act in a way that will make it
much harder to challenge a spate of strict new voting regulations enacted across the country by Republican-led state legislatures.

The court’s three liberals, all nominated by Democratic presidents, united behind a fierce dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan. “The majority
writes its own set of rules,” Kagan wrote, accusing the majority of inhabiting “a law-free zone” unconnected to the act’s words or Congress’s
intent.

Alito, the majority opinion’s author, in turn accused Kagan of employing “misdirection” and embarking on a “radical project” to empower
federal courts at the expense of state legislatures.

But vitriolic volleys between the court’s two ideological wings were more of an exception to the term
than the rule.
“Perhaps the
most remarkable feature of this term was that the entire court seemed to go out of its way
to find common ground,” said Gregory G. Garre, who for a time was solicitor general under President George W. Bush. “The term
saw surprising consensus across ideological lines in high-profile cases.”

The court was unanimous in ruling against the NCAA and its prohibition on colleges offering generous academic-related perks to
student-athletes. The justices found a narrow way to rule that Philadelphia must continue to allow a Catholic agency to participate in vetting
potential foster-care parents even though it will not accept same-sex couples to be foster parents.

The court ruled, 8 to 1, that a school had gone too far in punishing a high school cheerleader for a profane, off-campus
rant on social media, the first time in 50 years the court had sided with a student in a major First Amendment case.

And it
disposed of the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act, 7 to 2, choosing a path that even
Thomas, who has twice before opposed the act, could join.

David Cole, the national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, presented a sunny review of the
court’s term in a webinar with supporters this week.

“I think we at the ACLU can to some degree breathe a sigh of relief: It’s nowhere near as bad as people thought” it
would be, he said.

He noted that in one case this term, the

three liberals sided with the three Trump nominees to form a majority.
“It just shows, you cannot write anyone off on this court at this point — with the possible exception of
Justice Alito,” Cole said.

No thumpers---the Court’s steering clear of controversies that could taint a neutral

image.
Fritze ’21 [John; February 19; Supreme Court correspondent; USA Today, “Supreme Court takes 'go-
slow' approach on divisive issues as the rest of Washington reels,”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/02/19/supreme-court-gets-back-work-sidesteps-
hot-button-issues/6722673002/]

A blockbuster abortion case is apparently on hold. A series of gun rights challenges never made it to the lineup. High-
profile questions posed by Donald Trump’s presidency are beginning to fade into irrelevance.

As the Supreme Court returns to work Friday after a three-week recess and crosses the midpoint of its term, the
cases on deck are far from the type that would give the new 6-3 conservative majority a chance to assert
itself in the nation’s most divisive controversies.

By design or by luck, the

court’s nine justices are so far steering clear of hostile political debates at a time when
the rest of Washington is still reeling from the fallout from the November election, including a second Trump
impeachment trial that brought to the fore images of Americans storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.  

Chief Justice John Roberts, nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005, has long sought to maneuver the court
around similar partisan tensions. That above-politics approach sometimes drew the ire of Trump, who
castigated the high court as “incompetent and weak” for failing to buy into his baseless claims of election fraud.
Even as the court is increasingly taking incoming from the Trump wing of the Republican Party, progressives are leaning hard on President Joe
Biden to increase the number of justices as a way to blunt the impact Trump’s of nominees, end lifetime appointments and impose a more
rigorous code of judicial ethics.
"It does seem that the court may be holding back on agreeing to decide some major issues," said Stephen
Wermiel, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, adding that it could be a deliberate effort or the byproduct of having
three new justices seated over the past four years. 

"Is it letting the new conservative majority coalesce slowly? Is it to keep from having the court seem as
though it is on a juggernaut?" he said. "Maybe some combination of all of those."

As the court gets back to business this week, the justices will decide or hear a few cases sure to draw public attention,
including the latest challenge to Obamacare and a lawsuit questioning whether a Catholic foster care agency can turn down gay and lesbian
couples. The court's "shadow docket," or emergency cases decided without argument, has bristled with disputes over religious freedom and
the death penalty.

Still, those cases have been the exception.