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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: I just want you to walk me through the whole

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Speaker 1: thing again and how it works. We helped the wealthiest

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Speaker 1: families in the US get their kids into school. So

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Speaker 1: I've done seven hundred sixty one what I would call

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Speaker 1: side door. The front door means getting in on your own.

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Speaker 1: So I've created this kind of side door, and because

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Speaker 1: my families want to guarantee and it works every time.

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Speaker 1: The Varsity blues sting exploded into public view in with

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Speaker 1: dozens of parents across the country arrested for paying hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars to get their kids into elite universities.

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Speaker 1: There was a Netflix documentary, Books Countless Stories, and even

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Speaker 1: a Saturday Night Live skit. The vast majority of the

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Speaker 1: parents pleaded guilty, but a handful decided to fight the

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Speaker 1: charges in court, and now, nearly two and a half

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Speaker 1: years later, the first trial of two parents is starting

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Speaker 1: in Austin. Here to tell us about what's ahead is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Legal report of Patricia Hurtado, who has been covering

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Speaker 1: the case since the beginning. So pat tell us about

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Speaker 1: the two fathers who are going to be tried. Forty

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Speaker 1: parents were indicted by the U S Attorney in Massachusetts.

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Speaker 1: Thirty three pled guilty. Six of them are fighting the

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Speaker 1: charges and one got a partner from President Trump just

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Speaker 1: before he left office. Two dads are fighting the charges

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Speaker 1: in this first trial. It's John Wilson, the private equity

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Speaker 1: investor who is a former Staples and Gap executive, and

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Speaker 1: the Maal app del Az, a former executive for Win

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Speaker 1: Resort and he operated in Acal and Hong Kong left

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Speaker 1: at the time. I understand Rick Singer, the mastermind of

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Speaker 1: this day, had two different schemes. One was to boost

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Speaker 1: the college entrance test scores of kids whose parents paid money,

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Speaker 1: and he would get a test with to take the

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Speaker 1: test for the kids. The second scheme is called the

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Speaker 1: side door. The back door would be if your parents

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Speaker 1: donated stepanmillion dollar and you get into the college of

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Speaker 1: your choice because you've given them a new athletic building.

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Speaker 1: Or are you Jim. This side door is you don't

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Speaker 1: have to donate as much money. You could give the

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Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars to Rick Singer as a charitable

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Speaker 1: donation and he would help with friends and connections at

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Speaker 1: all these universities and get the applicant students and as

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Speaker 1: a purported athletic recruit, so it's like a jock for

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Speaker 1: a designated sport. Wilson is accused of paying Singer a

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Speaker 1: total of one point two million dollars for his three kids.

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Speaker 1: A Della dizz is accused of paying Singer three hundred

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars and more to a USC athletic coach for

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Speaker 1: his daughter's admission, and they don't deny they made the payments.

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Speaker 1: John Wilson is accused of trying to get his three

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Speaker 1: kids into colleges, the first with a son who he

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Speaker 1: allegedly paid Singer two hundred thousand dollars to get a

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Speaker 1: kid in as a water polo player. The dad says,

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Speaker 1: but my kid really was the water polo players. There

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Speaker 1: was no faking involved. I gave a few hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars to Singer. He told me he was going to

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Speaker 1: give it to USC, and as a matter of fact,

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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand ended up at USC, and I gotta

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Speaker 1: thank you know for my donation. Meanwhile, Singer pocket at

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Speaker 1: the next hundred downs. And then he's accused of allegedly

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Speaker 1: paying a million dollars to singer five hundred thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: a pop for the two twin daughters to get one

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Speaker 1: into Stanford as a purported athlete and one into Harvard

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Speaker 1: as a purported athlete. The dad Wilson says that his

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Speaker 1: two daughters tstoo dutifully and had excellent, if not near perfect,

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Speaker 1: college board scores, so they could have gotten into the

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Speaker 1: college of their choice. Then the dad Gamal at la

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Speaker 1: Zi's he's accused of trying to get his daughter into

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Speaker 1: USC as a reported basketball recruit. He says he didn't

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Speaker 1: need to pay abroad because she was good enough athletes.

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Speaker 1: Is USC on trial here in a sense? Well, it's

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Speaker 1: USC and the process, and USC was one of the

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Speaker 1: schools that everybody wanted to get into. It was like

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Speaker 1: a hot popular school for these West Coast parents. So

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Speaker 1: some of these parents went after USC and its admissions processes,

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Speaker 1: and it just p the documents and eventually they got

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Speaker 1: what they call a smoking gun, which is an eight

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Speaker 1: page spreadsheet of names of students who they knew at USC.

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Speaker 1: It was called the v I P List, and it

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Speaker 1: was submitted for admissions over a period of years. And

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Speaker 1: I think there's several dozen students. It's like an eight

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Speaker 1: page Xcel spreadsheet, and it explained their connection whether they

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Speaker 1: were good for quote unquote fifteen millions to the men's

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Speaker 1: golf team, for three millions to the USC Sporting Center.

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Speaker 1: It's just stunning to see this all written down in

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Speaker 1: this list. There was a magistrate at one point and

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Speaker 1: she was questioning what this c I P list was

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Speaker 1: and USC said, oh, there's nothing wrong. These are people

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Speaker 1: we just consider v I P. And the judge was saying, well,

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Speaker 1: why do you even have this list. So some of

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Speaker 1: these parents say this is an accepted way. Many schools

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Speaker 1: operate that if you just kick in enough cash, you know,

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Speaker 1: for a reasonable donation, you can get your kid into

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Speaker 1: the college of their choice if you know the right people.

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Speaker 1: So they're arguing their children were just part of this

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Speaker 1: group of people that are on the v I P

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Speaker 1: list and there was nothing wrong with what they were

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Speaker 1: doing and it's not criminal. So it seems like a

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Speaker 1: two pronged defense. The first is we did nothing wrong,

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Speaker 1: and the second is the mastermind Rick Singer misled us right,

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Speaker 1: and there's a big question. I was actually really shocked

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Speaker 1: when I covered the final pre trial conference for the

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Speaker 1: judge on August eating, and the government slipped in on

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Speaker 1: a footnote and a filing the night before said we

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Speaker 1: don't know if we're calling Rick Singer the mastermind. I

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Speaker 1: was kind of looking forward to hearing what his story was,

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Speaker 1: because the parents are saying he double talk to us,

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Speaker 1: he lied to us what we want to question him

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Speaker 1: and thrilled him on class examination. And there's also some notes.

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Speaker 1: Singer took notes on his iPhone just as he was

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Speaker 1: beginning to cooperate with the government, with the SBI and

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Speaker 1: I r S agents in the fall of and he

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Speaker 1: says the FBI agents told him to quote unquote telesps

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Speaker 1: to the parents to get them to implicate themselves and

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Speaker 1: why he was recording their calls. So the parents are

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Speaker 1: arguing Singer is a wire and basically fabricated all these

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Speaker 1: things that he said to us on the telephone. So

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Speaker 1: he told us one story before he cooperated, that everything

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Speaker 1: was on the up and up and was totally a

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Speaker 1: pure and riable and honest way of getting your kid

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Speaker 1: into college. But the minute he started cooperating and he

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Speaker 1: realized his neck was on the line, that's when he

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Speaker 1: started line and telling the different version, and we never

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Speaker 1: agree to what he was saying on the wire tap.

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Speaker 1: So because Singer may not testify the parents, probably you

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Speaker 1: cannot bring in those I phone notes because that witness

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Speaker 1: will not be on the stand. So it's a big question.

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Speaker 1: I've thought the lawyers about whether or not the parents

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Speaker 1: can make hay of those iPhone notes would prove or

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Speaker 1: help their arguments. The Singer was basically concocting stories the

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Speaker 1: minutes the FBI was listening. I can see how not

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Speaker 1: calling Singer will help the prosecution keep those notes out,

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Speaker 1: But how do you not call the alleged mastermind of

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Speaker 1: the scheme? Won't the jersey that as a hole in

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Speaker 1: the case and ask why are they not calling Singer?

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Speaker 1: They must be hiding something. And some people who ask me, well,

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Speaker 1: why don't the parents call Singer? But rules of evidence

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Speaker 1: and probably agree with me. If you call someone, you

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Speaker 1: can't impeach your own witness unless the court declares them

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Speaker 1: a hostile witness. And it's like a whole procedure you

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Speaker 1: have to go through. And the parents lawyers have never

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Speaker 1: spoken to Singer ever, so they don't really know what

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Speaker 1: his story is. It's not like the prosecutors who crept

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Speaker 1: somebody for days or weeks, having twenty six sessions and

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Speaker 1: knowing they asked a question, they exactly know what the

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Speaker 1: answer is. This would be like flying blind and asking

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Speaker 1: a question that might be a trap door for the

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Speaker 1: parents because then Singer could turn on the defense lawyer

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Speaker 1: and say, will your clients to criminal or whatever. So

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Speaker 1: the parents may not necessarily want to call Singer, but

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Speaker 1: they could make argument that there's a missing witness. You know,

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Speaker 1: they want to have the jury note that Singer is

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Speaker 1: missing and maybe make him out to be the fall

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Speaker 1: guy or the real villain of this whole scheme to

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Speaker 1: Rebut those wire taps, some of those recordings are very

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Speaker 1: you know, the parents are talking about, oh can I

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Speaker 1: get a two for one? Oh? How much is it

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Speaker 1: going to cost me? And it sounds like the parents

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Speaker 1: are scheming. A jury could considerue that that's evidence of

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Speaker 1: a father entering into an elicited ringment with Singer. So

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Speaker 1: the prosecution could introduce the tapes because the FBI recorded them,

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Speaker 1: But normally wouldn't you have the person who recorded them

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Speaker 1: on the stand to explain them, right, and you think

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Speaker 1: of doubt. Sometimes there's mob cases where they have a

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Speaker 1: wire tap, and they don't have a person that says

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Speaker 1: the wire taps. They just have the FBI agent saying, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we put a wire in the Ravenied Social Club and

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Speaker 1: that's how we got John Dotty Cockey. They already made

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Speaker 1: a request to the court to authenticate and the usage

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Speaker 1: of the case the consensual recordings that Singer made without Singer.

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Speaker 1: Do you know if either of the fathers are going

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Speaker 1: to take the stand. Of course they don't have to.

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Speaker 1: That remains to be seen. I guess how the case

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Speaker 1: plays out for the government side of it. One of

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Speaker 1: the things that's really interesting is a couple of parents

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Speaker 1: are going to testify for the government, a couple from

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Speaker 1: California named Bruce and Dzana Isaacson, and they were the

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Speaker 1: first to play guilty of all the parents. They immediately

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Speaker 1: did a deal and now they're going to testify what

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Speaker 1: they were thinking, to give the jury some perspective of

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Speaker 1: what parents may have been thinking, of what these two

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Speaker 1: fathers may have been thinking. They're also going to call

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Speaker 1: some coaching staff that played guil See and other co

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Speaker 1: conspirators with Singer in his business to give insight. This

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Speaker 1: was a gam that Singer was milking money. I mean

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Speaker 1: the government when they announced this case said Singer had

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Speaker 1: been doing this for years and had made twenty five millions.

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Speaker 1: We've added up the bound of bribes in this case.

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Speaker 1: I think we got to maybe ten million or eight millions.

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Speaker 1: We've talked about this case several times, and initially I

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Speaker 1: thought the prosecution has a slam dunk case, but it

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Speaker 1: seems like the defense might knock some holes in the

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Speaker 1: prosecution's case. What you can do get a plea deal

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Speaker 1: is different from how it will play before a jury.

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Speaker 1: I mean some people have said, oh, this is going

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Speaker 1: to be so impalatable to the general public ensured that

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Speaker 1: they're going to immediately convict and the judge. I'm in

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Speaker 1: more than two hundred people to courts in Boston to

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Speaker 1: have people fill out a questionnaire. And it's the thirteen

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Speaker 1: page questionnaire that asked, how much do you know about

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Speaker 1: this case? Have you ever had a child applied to college?

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Speaker 1: Have you remember worked in the college system, you have

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Speaker 1: work at fundraised? Do you have anything against cooperators? So

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Speaker 1: they're going to try to weed out those with opinions

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Speaker 1: that might be swayed one way or another, and to

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Speaker 1: read out those people and try to get a fair

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Speaker 1: and impartial jury. Thanks Pat, That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado.

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Speaker 1: Another group of charismatic fish are the darters. Darters are

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Speaker 1: a small, wonderfully colored bottom dwelling fish that looks more

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Speaker 1: suited to live in a coral reef for tropical aquarium

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Speaker 1: than the cold, fast flowing streams of the Smokies. The

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Speaker 1: snail darter is a tiny Tennessee fish that made big

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Speaker 1: waves in legal waters. That is, the three inch fish

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Speaker 1: became famous when the case to save it went all

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Speaker 1: the way to the Supreme Court, and the court's first

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Speaker 1: decision on the landmark Endangered Species Act in articulated an

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Speaker 1: expansive interpretation of the law in favor of protections for

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Speaker 1: the little fish. Now, after nearly fifty years, the snail

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Speaker 1: darter has been taken off the endangered species list, joining

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Speaker 1: me as a lawyer who took that case to the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Zig Platter, professor at Boston College Law School,

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Speaker 1: tell us about the snail darter. The snail darter was

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Speaker 1: a tiny perch that was found in the last thirty

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Speaker 1: miles of big flowing, clean river in Tennessee because sixty

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Speaker 1: seven other damns basically eliminated wherever else it lived, and

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Speaker 1: the Tennessee Value Authority decided they wanted to build their

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Speaker 1: last damn to impound this river and the darter, it

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Speaker 1: turns out, was you know, a perfect illustration two humans

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Speaker 1: canary in the coal mine, that this was the last

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Speaker 1: place left for humans who having credible trout fishing and

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Speaker 1: boy Scouts and girl Scouts could do the float trips there,

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Speaker 1: and the history of the Cherokee Indians. The little fish

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Speaker 1: was in effect a barometer for a lot of really

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Speaker 1: strong public values right at the edge of the Smoky

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Speaker 1: Mountains National Park, and so the farmers fought to protect

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Speaker 1: their farms by protecting the fish. Um there were three

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Speaker 1: family farms that were condemned by the government agency, most

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Speaker 1: of them for resale, not most of them not for

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Speaker 1: the little lake. So it's a complicated story because you

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Speaker 1: got to explain the agency was not building this for hydropower,

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Speaker 1: It wasn't building it for flood control. It was it

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Speaker 1: had to justify it by inventing a pretend city that

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Speaker 1: they said would be built on the land that they

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Speaker 1: had condemned. It never was, and also if this would

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Speaker 1: be a recreational lake, it's not a Ydro lake in

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Speaker 1: terms of his justifications that everything is connected to everything else.

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Speaker 1: But it's a complicated story. How did the farmers take

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Speaker 1: up this battle? Well, the farmers really were quite sophisticated,

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Speaker 1: for you know, Appalachian farmers, who most of them had

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Speaker 1: not gone to college. They got a lawyer to bring

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Speaker 1: an environmental impact statement case first of all, and the

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Speaker 1: government agency, we don't have to do an impact statement

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Speaker 1: because we're an emergency agency or something. Uh. They went

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Speaker 1: to court and they got an injunction. So for sixteen months,

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Speaker 1: the Tennessee Valley Authority had to prepare an environmental impact statement.

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Speaker 1: But once you do that, it's a procedure. They've they've

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Speaker 1: done the procedure, they can go ahead and flood the valley.

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Speaker 1: Um even though the farmers said, the valley, the agriculture,

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Speaker 1: the tourism, the history is worth much more than than

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Speaker 1: the last most marginal dam. But once they lost, they

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Speaker 1: had about given up. And then suddenly this little fish

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Speaker 1: was discovered, and the guy who discovered it was in

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Speaker 1: the middle of a river. He bent over, and the shallow, beautiful,

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Speaker 1: clear river he picked up this fish in his fingers.

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Speaker 1: Then he walked over to the bank and he said

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Speaker 1: to the farmer, this is an endangered fish and this

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Speaker 1: might save your farms. And so they basically carried the case.

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Speaker 1: My students and I did the law of it, and

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Speaker 1: we had a local attorney on the trial as well.

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Speaker 1: But the farmers, they went to Washington. They testified, this

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Speaker 1: was grassroots democracy, an incredible story. And then you know,

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Speaker 1: we won in the Supreme Court. Tell me how it

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Speaker 1: got to the Supreme Court. Well, at trial, the judge

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Speaker 1: in Tennessee, of course, decided in favor of the Tennessee

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Speaker 1: Valley Authority, but he said, this dam is going to

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Speaker 1: jeopardize the survival of the fish and it's going to

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Speaker 1: destroy its natural habitat, but I'm not going to stop it.

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Speaker 1: And then in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal said,

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Speaker 1: excuse me, but those are both separate violations of the

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Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act. So they stopped the project, and the

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Speaker 1: agency took it to the Supreme Court of the United States,

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Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court said, well, Congress said, you cannot

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Speaker 1: destroy an endangered species or destroy its habitat if you're

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Speaker 1: a federal agency. Meanwhile, Of course, there was a firestorm

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Speaker 1: going because this is the only law that most citizens

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Speaker 1: could bring a suit for that would question the rationality

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Speaker 1: of a project. Normally, all they have to do is

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Speaker 1: do the paperwork. That's what an environmental impact statement was.

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Speaker 1: So eventually, after the Supreme Court there was a cabinet

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Speaker 1: level economic study about what was worth more the river

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Speaker 1: development that the farmers wanted, or the dam develop but

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Speaker 1: that the agency wanted. I mean, this was the God Committee,

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Speaker 1: is an extraordinary tribunal that most people don't know about. Unanimously,

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Speaker 1: they said the dam was never worth building in the

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Speaker 1: first place, and it isn't worth completing because the river

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Speaker 1: with agriculture, with the historical stuff, with tourism, with an

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Speaker 1: industrial park. The farmers really made an amazingly good argument,

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Speaker 1: and so it was vetoed. And then in Congress, the

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Speaker 1: industries that were worried about the Endangered Species Act and

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Speaker 1: the government agencies that build dams were able to change

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Speaker 1: the law. The river died and the fish was wiped

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Speaker 1: out in its major natural habitat. It was really heartbreaking

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Speaker 1: politics because every member of Congress got a message from

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Speaker 1: the Department of Interior and this high level committee saying

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Speaker 1: this dam will destroy more than it will ever create.

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Speaker 1: But America didn't know that because the firestorm of political

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Speaker 1: rhetoric was all, you know, stupid little fish, gigantic hydro

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Speaker 1: electric dam. The dam is a tiny little dam and

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Speaker 1: it's not a hydro dam. And the cynical environmentalists who

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Speaker 1: don't care about the fish, well, you know, we care

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Speaker 1: about all living things, and in this case, this living

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Speaker 1: thing was connected to economic values, and so it was

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Speaker 1: heartbreaking to lose the Little Tennessee River. People were coming

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Speaker 1: from hundreds of miles away to fish this place before

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Speaker 1: it died. Who relocated the fish? Well, once a species

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Speaker 1: is endangered, if Congress has said you cannot save it

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Speaker 1: in its natural habitat as they said here, then the

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Speaker 1: Department of Interior put together a recovery team and they said, well,

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Speaker 1: what can we do to keep the species from dying out?

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Speaker 1: And working with tv A, and t v A said okay,

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Speaker 1: where can we transplant it? The Department of Interior worked

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Speaker 1: out plan and so they put it in several rivers

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Speaker 1: that weren't ideal. And so that's part of this story

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Speaker 1: that you know, some people say, oh, well, when you

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Speaker 1: have an endangered meansy to transplant it somewhere else. It

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Speaker 1: took forty years. It took forty years. But the transplant

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Speaker 1: now seems to be successful. But to fallback transplantation is

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Speaker 1: you know, it's second best. No, it's not even second best,

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Speaker 1: it's third best. First best is to keep a species,

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Speaker 1: to conserve it in its natural habitat second is to

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Speaker 1: put it into a place where it can live without

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Speaker 1: any more human investment, human actions. But the third best,

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Speaker 1: I guess is what they did because these rivers in

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Speaker 1: the summertime got hot, didn't have enough oxygen. So t

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Speaker 1: v A now has to pump oxygen into the transplant

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Speaker 1: rivers to keep the fish alive. And they're pulsing their

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Speaker 1: dams to wash the mud away so that the fish

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Speaker 1: can have spawning beds, egg and children in the clean

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Speaker 1: gravel below some of these dams. So the fish are surviving,

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Speaker 1: but they depend on a government agency maintaining oxygen pumping

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Speaker 1: into the water and a special flushing water pressure process

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Speaker 1: and the dams. And that's not ideal. You you want

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Speaker 1: a transplant that doesn't require human support forever. That's what

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Speaker 1: we've got. The government said it's no longer in danger

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Speaker 1: of extinction. Is that true or not true? That's right.

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Speaker 1: The scientist said, if the t v A keeps putting

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Speaker 1: liquid oxygen into the water and keeps flushing the dams

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Speaker 1: in a way it hadn't done before so as to

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Speaker 1: clean alternative rivers where the fish could survive, then the

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Speaker 1: fish can survive. It's no longer endangered. And that's science,

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Speaker 1: and I believe it's true. It's just we have to

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Speaker 1: be sure that those measures to conserve the species go

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Speaker 1: on how long? Forever? Forever? So wouldn't it have been

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Speaker 1: better than to leave it on the endangered species list?

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Speaker 1: Why did you file a petition to delist it? That's

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Speaker 1: a really tough question, and there complicated answers and scientific terms.

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Speaker 1: It was no longer endangered because the agencies were pumping

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Speaker 1: oxygen and blowing the water clean. So, but this more

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Speaker 1: to it. The prior federal administration was attacking the Endangered

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Speaker 1: Species Act. It was cutting regulations this way and that

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Speaker 1: that the protected species. And we started hearing that there

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Speaker 1: was a specific plan to delist the snail darter in

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Speaker 1: a way that would not protect it, and so it's

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Speaker 1: it's sort of preemptive. We don't like transplantation. But um,

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Speaker 1: by filing the petition ourselves, we sort of get special standing.

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Speaker 1: Two make sure that those measures continue, that the delisting

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Speaker 1: regulation will require those actions to go on forever. And

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Speaker 1: you know, if there's ever a double cross, if the

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Speaker 1: agency stopped protecting the fish, we will be able under

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Speaker 1: the delisting regulation immediately to file for emergency relisting. And

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Speaker 1: it's it's unfortunate that we have to talk about it

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Speaker 1: in those terms, but I'm thinking that in the circumstances

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Speaker 1: it was going to be delisted by the prior administration.

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Speaker 1: We filed in July, there was still a year and

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Speaker 1: a half of the prior administration or more, and the

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Speaker 1: safest thing to do was to try to be part

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Speaker 1: of the process to make sure that maintenance of the

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Speaker 1: protections could could be assured. What did environmentalists learned from

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Speaker 1: the whole saga of the snail darter? Well, it's it's

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Speaker 1: it's interesting. In spite of the tremendous criticism that was

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Speaker 1: poured against the snail darter, I mean it really was.

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Speaker 1: We were called fringe lunatics and Russia Limball called us

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Speaker 1: homo socialists. I mean, protecting a stupid little fish against

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Speaker 1: a gigantic hydro electric dam. Of course that wasn't the case.

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Speaker 1: But this is the point. Even when it was thought

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Speaker 1: to be an extreme as the courts enforced the law.

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Speaker 1: And that is a precedent that makes people pay attention

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Speaker 1: to the law even if they don't like it, if

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Speaker 1: they know that even in that case, the courts enforced it.

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Speaker 1: So so there is that a really good precedent came

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Speaker 1: from it. And the species, you know, the Endangered Species

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Speaker 1: Act is recovered a fair number of species over the years.

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Speaker 1: The Act works. The Clean Water Act works because the

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Speaker 1: water and the rivers where they put the fish is

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Speaker 1: cleaner than it was um back forty years ago. So

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Speaker 1: so it's one of those things where you make the

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Speaker 1: best decision you can in the circumstances when the really

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Speaker 1: best solution for everyone, for the farmers, for fisherman, for

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Speaker 1: the Cherokee Indians that had their sacred sites in this

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Speaker 1: river area, and for the fish. You when you lose

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Speaker 1: it there, you do the best you can somewhere else. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the president in the law is a good strong one.

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Speaker 1: Tell me what the precedent is and whether you think

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Speaker 1: this Supreme Court would recognize that precedent today. Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's of course a complicated question. The present Supreme Court says,

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Speaker 1: the members who have been put there recently say that

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Speaker 1: they generally follow precedent. They don't overturn prior Supreme Court decisions.

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Speaker 1: Now we'll see with Roe versus Way, that will be

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Speaker 1: of course a question. And but this was such a

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Speaker 1: declaratory decision by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: Warren Burger, saying that the Endangered Species Act represents institutionalized caution.

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Speaker 1: You don't destroy a species when if there's any possible alternative,

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Speaker 1: and of course in most of these cases there are alternatives.

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Speaker 1: The president is that the courts will enforce the protection

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Speaker 1: of the species and of its habitat um. And that's

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Speaker 1: really something. It's it's cited all the time for the

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Speaker 1: importance of not having a court overturn a law, and um,

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Speaker 1: it's been used to protect many other species. But it's

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Speaker 1: also been used in other settings too, where where there's

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Speaker 1: a question of whether the Water Pollution Act is going

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Speaker 1: to be Well, you cite t V a versus Hill,

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Speaker 1: the Stale Darter case, and courts say, oh, yeah, that's

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Speaker 1: that extreme case where the courts just enforced the law.

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Speaker 1: I guess that's what the law hust be. And if

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Speaker 1: Congress is going to change it, and you know, Congress

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Speaker 1: is always a question. It's it's but, but you know,

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Speaker 1: the Congress doesn't easily change the law. Uh, it holds

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Speaker 1: things together and over time, very often endangered species are

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Speaker 1: sensitive little indicators of human importance, of human economics as

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Speaker 1: well as ecology. The the plan that the farmers did

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Speaker 1: for the river had a tourism route from the Interstates,

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Speaker 1: going up through the valley, through these historic areas, through

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Speaker 1: the farmland into the Smoky's Park it which gets eleven

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Speaker 1: million people a year. It would have been an incredible

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Speaker 1: money maker for the local region instead of just one

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Speaker 1: more damn the dam which is already getting polluted with algae.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for being the Bloomberg Law Show. That's Zig Platter,

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Speaker 1: a professor at Boston College Law School. And that's it

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Speaker 1: for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you

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Speaker 1: can always at the latest legal news on our Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

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Speaker 1: and at www dot Bloomberg dot com. Slash podcast Last Law.

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Speaker 1: I'm John Rosso and you're listening to Bloomberg,