RBG Quotes Scripture in Clean Air Act Decision

April 29th, 2014

Not the quotation I was expecting from a Ginsburg opinion on the Clean Air Act:

Further complicating the problem, pollutants do not emerge from the smokestacks of an upwind State and uniformly migrate downwind. Some pollutants stay with­ in upwind States’ borders, the wind carries others to downwind States, and some subset of that group drifts to States without air quality problems. “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.” The Holy Bible, John 3:8 (King James Version). In craft­ ing a solution to the problem of interstate air pollution, regulators must account for the vagaries of the wind.