On September 1, Texas is slated to open its new business courts, a brand-new legal system backed by Big Oil — and several of the court’s main judges have in the past represented fossil fuel companies as lawyers, the Lever has found.
The judges were handpicked over the last two months by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a major recipient of oil industry cash — and many can be quickly replaced if they hand down decisions he opposes, a judicial design that he championed.
The courts consist of eleven regional business courts and a new statewide court of appeals to hear appellate litigation, which are expected to have immediate impacts on environmental cases in the state. As Public Health Watch, an independent investigative news organization, reported last month, a suite of cases involving state environmental authorities will now be transferred from a generally liberal appeals court to the state’s new Fifteenth Court of Appeals, created to oversee the business courts.
There, these cases will be decided by a panel of conservative judges historically friendly to industry — particularly oil and gas interests, a powerful force in Texas.
“Greg Abbott created a boutique court for corporations where he, not the voters, gets to pick the judges,” said Adrian Shelley, the director of the Texas office at Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy organization. “It’s that simple.”
The judge that Abbott selected to head the new appellate court, Scott Brister, has since 2009 worked at a law firm known for its specialty in fossil fuel litigation….
La suite est à lire sur: jacobin.com
Auteur: Katya Schwenk
