During his 12-year term on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh had the opportunity to address most of the federal environmental laws in the United States and influenced several important Supreme Court decisions (see, for example, Michigan v. EPA, 135 S.Ct. 2699 (2015)). His nomination by the President to the U.S. Supreme Court this summer generated dozens of articles on Kavanaugh’s environmental record, many of which concluded that he could be expected to favor deregulation over environmental protection. The astoundingly partisan and adversarial hearing process for Kavanaugh overshadowed further debate about his environmental record. We revisit that debate to further clarify what environmental law practitioners and stakeholders might expect from the high court’s newest justice.

Historically, the most consistent aspect of now-Justice Kavanuagh’s record regarding environmental (and other administrative law) matters has been his insistence that agencies never stray from a strict reading of the statute at hand, even when a strict reading leads to undesirable results. We consider whether he has applied this approach evenly and conclude that he has not.

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