Speaking at a
Federalist Society event at Caplin Pavilion on April 11, U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement revealed that the Supreme Court docket is packed with key environmental, antitrust, and business cases.
Clement, the 43rd solicitor general, handles all litigation for the U.S. in the Supreme Court and oversees all litigation in federal appellate courts.
Clement said, “Although it’s difficult to make any firm predictions in the middle of the term, I feel reasonably confident in predicting the court’s term as a whole will be considered quite an interesting and important one and also that we will start to develop at least some meaningful data points when it comes to thinking about what the Roberts Court is going to look like.” This is the first term in which all justices will be serving on the Roberts Court.
Clement also said, “This will be a term that will be remembered as having some very important environmental cases. I think that the business docket of the court will also be a significant contributor to the importance of the decisions this term.”
Currently, the Supreme Court is a bit behind. While the Court had issued 35 opinions by this time last year, it has barely issued 22 opinions so far this year. It will be playing catch-up by hearing additional arguments in the afternoon; there are 16 cases slated for April. Clement commented that this uncommon move will generate more important decisions at the end of the term.
Some of the important cases this term include:
▪ Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency
▪ Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy
▪ National Association of Home Builders v. Defenders of Wildlife
▪ United States v.Atlantic Research
▪ Philip MorrisUSA v. Williams
▪ Bell Atlantic v. Twombly
For more on this story, please go to www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2007_spr/clement.htm?type=feed.