Dear Senator,

The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) works to turn environmental values into national, state and local priorities. Each year, LCV publishes the National Environmental Scorecard, which details the voting records of members of Congress on environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed to LCV members, concerned voters nationwide, and the media.

We urge you to oppose the judicial nomination of Andrew Oldham to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. As Deputy Solicitor General of Texas and General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Oldham has been at the forefront of Texas’s legal fights with the federal government over environmental protections and immigration. Oldham is so extreme that he does not just disagree with federal regulations, he actually questions their constitutionality. In 2016, Oldham told University of Chicago law students, “The reason why the administrative state is enraging is not that we disagree with what the EPA does, it’s the illegitimacy of it.”

Oldham worked with then-Oklahoma Attorney General, now EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, on two cases challenging the EPA’s ability to implement the Clean Air Act. In the first case, Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, Texas challenged EPA authority to regulate stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions, and even advocated for reconsidering or overruling Massachusetts vs. EPA. And in EPA v. EME Homer City Generation, he signed a brief challenging EPA’s rule regulating “upwind” air pollution traveling between states.

Further, Oldham has shown a disturbing anti-immigrant streak. In 2015, he wrote a friend of the court brief in support of Governor Abbott’s successful challenge of former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order. He was also involved in Texas’s amicus brief in support of Shelby County, Alabama in Shelby County v. Holder, which gutted the Voting Rights Act, and defended Texas’s controversial voter ID law, which a federal judge ruled was passed with the intent to discriminate against communities of color.

For these reasons, LCV strongly urges you to oppose the judicial nomination of Andrew Oldham to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. We will consider including this confirmation vote in the 2018 Scorecard. If you need more information, please call my office at (202) 785-8683 and ask to speak with a member of our government relations team.

Sincerely,

Gene Karpinski

President