The Right Line Of Work

If you're a lawyer -- a litigator -- and someone tells you there's a case in the First Circuit involving the question of whether a Maine wilderness waterway enactment is preempted by the federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, and your response is "Ooohhh! Cool issue!", that's a good sign you've chosen the proper line of work. (Though if you draft ghastly run-on sentences like the foregoing, you ought to reconsider any profession involving the written word.)

It's also the issue decided (no preemption) by the First Circuit today in Fitzgerald v. Harris, No. 08-1306.

My Kind Of Water-Borne Parasite

On environmental issues, the conventional wisdom is probably that big liberal cities like New York and Portland are more aggressively regulatory than the Bush administration or the judges sitting on most circuit courts of appeal.

How to explain this, then? New York and Portland unsuccessfully challenged an EPA rule that will require them to take additional steps to reduce the amount of cryptosporidium in public drinking water. The Court helpfully reminds us that cryptosporidium “is a parasite found in human and animal feces.”

New York and Portland also win the award for most cringe-inducing argument of the day: claiming that “sensitive subpopulations (e.g., AIDS patients) . . . tend to drink more bottled water than normal.” If you’re going to make an argument like that to smart fellas like Messrs. Ginsburg, Tatel, and Sentelle, you might want it to, er, have at least some factual support.