The Senate Judiciary Committee — voting along party lines — narrowly approved the nomination of William G. Myers III to the federal appeals bench yesterday, signaling a likely Democratic filibuster on the Senate floor.
Mr. Myers, a lawyer in the U.S. Department of Interior nominated by President Bush to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, has drawn the ire of environmentalists for his work as a lobbyist for grazing and mining interests out West.
“When it comes to the environment, confirming William Myers would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse,” Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, said before joining the other committee Democrats in voting against him.
Mr. Myers — once a staffer to former Sen. Alan K. Simpson, Wyoming Republican — was supported by all the Republicans on the panel. With a 10-9 party line vote, he is expected to meet the same fate as six other Bush nominees who have been filibustered to prevent a final vote by the Senate.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin G. Hatch, Utah Republican, said Mr. Myers is being wrongly attacked by environmentalists.
“Mr. Myers’ record as the Interior Department’s solicitor, where he was doing his duty to represent the policy positions of the United States, has been attacked because certain groups don’t like those policies,” Mr. Hatch said. “He has been unfairly criticized for daring to represent farmers, ranchers and miners while in private practice — as if ranchers and those who make economic uses of Western lands are less entitled to representation than the liberal environmental groups that attempt to dictate Western land policy.”
In addition to his legal work on behalf of ranchers and mining companies, Mr. Myers’ writings about the impact of the environmental movement on private property and government land also fell under scrutiny.
“Environmentalists are mountain biking to the courthouse as never before, bent on stopping human activity wherever it may produce health, safety, and welfare,” he wrote in one article. In another, he said “the biggest disaster now facing ranchers” was “a flood of regulations designed to turn the West into little more than a theme park.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, took exception to Mr. Myers’ assessment of a bill she wrote to preserve desert land as “an example of legislative hubris.”
“As the author of the California Desert Protection Act, I was quite struck by this statement,” she said. “The act set aside 7.7 million acres of pristine California wilderness, 5.5 million acres as a national park preserve and provided habitat for over 760 different wildlife species.”
In a 1996 article, Mr. Myers likened the federal management of rangelands out West to the “tyrannical actions of King George” against the American colonists.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat and ranking member of the committee, said he was offended by that comment.
“I come from a part of the country — New England — where we fought the Revolution,” he said. “We take these things very, very seriously.”
Sen. Larry E. Craig, Idaho Republican, said Mr. Myers would help balance the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit, which handles federal appeals from California and six other Western states. He said the court is famous for liberal rulings, such as its decision last year that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because it includes the words “under God.”
“I do believe the Bill Myers’ judicial philosophy places him firmly in the mainstream of American jurisprudence,” said Mr. Craig, whose home state is included in the 9th Circuit. “If you want real examples of extremist judicial philosophy, I think you have to look no further that the very circuit court on which we are trying to place Bill Myers.”
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