Sotomayor's Past Rulings Encourage Environmentalists

Since joining the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor has authored more than 150 opinions in civil cases on a wide range of issues. Two of these decisions have been overturned by the Supreme Court, including her most notable environmental ruling in the case of Riverkeeper, Inc. v. EPA.

Argued in 2005 and decided in 2007, the case was a challenge to a rule by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulating cooling-water intake structures at power plants. The challenge was brought by 17 environmental groups, six power utilities, and the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York.

The EPA rule is intended to protect aquatic organisms from being harmed or killed by cooling water intake structures at large, existing power plants. The cooling process requires power plants to extract billions of gallons of water a day from lakes or rivers, a process that can kill or injure billions of aquatic organisms in a year. vTo minimize this adverse impact on aquatic life, the Clean Water Act requires the intake structures to use the "best technology available," without detailing exactly what the EPA should consider in determining the "best technology available."

Sotomayor held that the EPA was not permitted to engage in a cost-benefit analysis to determine the "best technology available."

She found that the EPA had exceeded its authority by rejecting closed-cycle cooling technology and instead allowing a "suite of technologies," such as attempts to restock fish into the damaged natural resources, as the best technology available.