Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brussel from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: I just want you to walk me through the whole
Speaker 1: thing again and how it works. We helped the wealthiest
Speaker 1: families in the US get their kids into school. So
Speaker 1: I've done seven hundred sixty one what I would call
Speaker 1: side door. The front door means getting in on your own.
Speaker 1: So I've created this kind of side door, and because
Speaker 1: my families want to guarantee and it works every time.
Speaker 1: The Varsity blues sting exploded into public view in with
Speaker 1: dozens of parents across the country arrested for paying hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of dollars to get their kids into elite universities.
Speaker 1: There was a Netflix documentary, Books Countless Stories, and even
Speaker 1: a Saturday Night Live skit. The vast majority of the
Speaker 1: parents pleaded guilty, but a handful decided to fight the
Speaker 1: charges in court, and now, nearly two and a half
Speaker 1: years later, the first trial of two parents is starting
Speaker 1: in Austin. Here to tell us about what's ahead is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Legal report of Patricia Hurtado, who has been covering
Speaker 1: the case since the beginning. So pat tell us about
Speaker 1: the two fathers who are going to be tried. Forty
Speaker 1: parents were indicted by the U S Attorney in Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Thirty three pled guilty. Six of them are fighting the
Speaker 1: charges and one got a partner from President Trump just
Speaker 1: before he left office. Two dads are fighting the charges
Speaker 1: in this first trial. It's John Wilson, the private equity
Speaker 1: investor who is a former Staples and Gap executive, and
Speaker 1: the Maal app del Az, a former executive for Win
Speaker 1: Resort and he operated in Acal and Hong Kong left
Speaker 1: at the time. I understand Rick Singer, the mastermind of
Speaker 1: this day, had two different schemes. One was to boost
Speaker 1: the college entrance test scores of kids whose parents paid money,
Speaker 1: and he would get a test with to take the
Speaker 1: test for the kids. The second scheme is called the
Speaker 1: side door. The back door would be if your parents
Speaker 1: donated stepanmillion dollar and you get into the college of
Speaker 1: your choice because you've given them a new athletic building.
Speaker 1: Or are you Jim. This side door is you don't
Speaker 1: have to donate as much money. You could give the
Speaker 1: two hundred thousand dollars to Rick Singer as a charitable
Speaker 1: donation and he would help with friends and connections at
Speaker 1: all these universities and get the applicant students and as
Speaker 1: a purported athletic recruit, so it's like a jock for
Speaker 1: a designated sport. Wilson is accused of paying Singer a
Speaker 1: total of one point two million dollars for his three kids.
Speaker 1: A Della dizz is accused of paying Singer three hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars and more to a USC athletic coach for
Speaker 1: his daughter's admission, and they don't deny they made the payments.
Speaker 1: John Wilson is accused of trying to get his three
Speaker 1: kids into colleges, the first with a son who he
Speaker 1: allegedly paid Singer two hundred thousand dollars to get a
Speaker 1: kid in as a water polo player. The dad says,
Speaker 1: but my kid really was the water polo players. There
Speaker 1: was no faking involved. I gave a few hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars to Singer. He told me he was going to
Speaker 1: give it to USC, and as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand ended up at USC, and I gotta
Speaker 1: thank you know for my donation. Meanwhile, Singer pocket at
Speaker 1: the next hundred downs. And then he's accused of allegedly
Speaker 1: paying a million dollars to singer five hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: a pop for the two twin daughters to get one
Speaker 1: into Stanford as a purported athlete and one into Harvard
Speaker 1: as a purported athlete. The dad Wilson says that his
Speaker 1: two daughters tstoo dutifully and had excellent, if not near perfect,
Speaker 1: college board scores, so they could have gotten into the
Speaker 1: college of their choice. Then the dad Gamal at la
Speaker 1: Zi's he's accused of trying to get his daughter into
Speaker 1: USC as a reported basketball recruit. He says he didn't
Speaker 1: need to pay abroad because she was good enough athletes.
Speaker 1: Is USC on trial here in a sense? Well, it's
Speaker 1: USC and the process, and USC was one of the
Speaker 1: schools that everybody wanted to get into. It was like
Speaker 1: a hot popular school for these West Coast parents. So
Speaker 1: some of these parents went after USC and its admissions processes,
Speaker 1: and it just p the documents and eventually they got
Speaker 1: what they call a smoking gun, which is an eight
Speaker 1: page spreadsheet of names of students who they knew at USC.
Speaker 1: It was called the v I P List, and it
Speaker 1: was submitted for admissions over a period of years. And
Speaker 1: I think there's several dozen students. It's like an eight
Speaker 1: page Xcel spreadsheet, and it explained their connection whether they
Speaker 1: were good for quote unquote fifteen millions to the men's
Speaker 1: golf team, for three millions to the USC Sporting Center.
Speaker 1: It's just stunning to see this all written down in
Speaker 1: this list. There was a magistrate at one point and
Speaker 1: she was questioning what this c I P list was
Speaker 1: and USC said, oh, there's nothing wrong. These are people
Speaker 1: we just consider v I P. And the judge was saying, well,
Speaker 1: why do you even have this list. So some of
Speaker 1: these parents say this is an accepted way. Many schools
Speaker 1: operate that if you just kick in enough cash, you know,
Speaker 1: for a reasonable donation, you can get your kid into
Speaker 1: the college of their choice if you know the right people.
Speaker 1: So they're arguing their children were just part of this
Speaker 1: group of people that are on the v I P
Speaker 1: list and there was nothing wrong with what they were
Speaker 1: doing and it's not criminal. So it seems like a
Speaker 1: two pronged defense. The first is we did nothing wrong,
Speaker 1: and the second is the mastermind Rick Singer misled us right,
Speaker 1: and there's a big question. I was actually really shocked
Speaker 1: when I covered the final pre trial conference for the
Speaker 1: judge on August eating, and the government slipped in on
Speaker 1: a footnote and a filing the night before said we
Speaker 1: don't know if we're calling Rick Singer the mastermind. I
Speaker 1: was kind of looking forward to hearing what his story was,
Speaker 1: because the parents are saying he double talk to us,
Speaker 1: he lied to us what we want to question him
Speaker 1: and thrilled him on class examination. And there's also some notes.
Speaker 1: Singer took notes on his iPhone just as he was
Speaker 1: beginning to cooperate with the government, with the SBI and
Speaker 1: I r S agents in the fall of and he
Speaker 1: says the FBI agents told him to quote unquote telesps
Speaker 1: to the parents to get them to implicate themselves and
Speaker 1: why he was recording their calls. So the parents are
Speaker 1: arguing Singer is a wire and basically fabricated all these
Speaker 1: things that he said to us on the telephone. So
Speaker 1: he told us one story before he cooperated, that everything
Speaker 1: was on the up and up and was totally a
Speaker 1: pure and riable and honest way of getting your kid
Speaker 1: into college. But the minute he started cooperating and he
Speaker 1: realized his neck was on the line, that's when he
Speaker 1: started line and telling the different version, and we never
Speaker 1: agree to what he was saying on the wire tap.
Speaker 1: So because Singer may not testify the parents, probably you
Speaker 1: cannot bring in those I phone notes because that witness
Speaker 1: will not be on the stand. So it's a big question.
Speaker 1: I've thought the lawyers about whether or not the parents
Speaker 1: can make hay of those iPhone notes would prove or
Speaker 1: help their arguments. The Singer was basically concocting stories the
Speaker 1: minutes the FBI was listening. I can see how not
Speaker 1: calling Singer will help the prosecution keep those notes out,
Speaker 1: But how do you not call the alleged mastermind of
Speaker 1: the scheme? Won't the jersey that as a hole in
Speaker 1: the case and ask why are they not calling Singer?
Speaker 1: They must be hiding something. And some people who ask me, well,
Speaker 1: why don't the parents call Singer? But rules of evidence
Speaker 1: and probably agree with me. If you call someone, you
Speaker 1: can't impeach your own witness unless the court declares them
Speaker 1: a hostile witness. And it's like a whole procedure you
Speaker 1: have to go through. And the parents lawyers have never
Speaker 1: spoken to Singer ever, so they don't really know what
Speaker 1: his story is. It's not like the prosecutors who crept
Speaker 1: somebody for days or weeks, having twenty six sessions and
Speaker 1: knowing they asked a question, they exactly know what the
Speaker 1: answer is. This would be like flying blind and asking
Speaker 1: a question that might be a trap door for the
Speaker 1: parents because then Singer could turn on the defense lawyer
Speaker 1: and say, will your clients to criminal or whatever. So
Speaker 1: the parents may not necessarily want to call Singer, but
Speaker 1: they could make argument that there's a missing witness. You know,
Speaker 1: they want to have the jury note that Singer is
Speaker 1: missing and maybe make him out to be the fall
Speaker 1: guy or the real villain of this whole scheme to
Speaker 1: Rebut those wire taps, some of those recordings are very
Speaker 1: you know, the parents are talking about, oh can I
Speaker 1: get a two for one? Oh? How much is it
Speaker 1: going to cost me? And it sounds like the parents
Speaker 1: are scheming. A jury could considerue that that's evidence of
Speaker 1: a father entering into an elicited ringment with Singer. So
Speaker 1: the prosecution could introduce the tapes because the FBI recorded them,
Speaker 1: But normally wouldn't you have the person who recorded them
Speaker 1: on the stand to explain them, right, and you think
Speaker 1: of doubt. Sometimes there's mob cases where they have a
Speaker 1: wire tap, and they don't have a person that says
Speaker 1: the wire taps. They just have the FBI agent saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we put a wire in the Ravenied Social Club and
Speaker 1: that's how we got John Dotty Cockey. They already made
Speaker 1: a request to the court to authenticate and the usage
Speaker 1: of the case the consensual recordings that Singer made without Singer.
Speaker 1: Do you know if either of the fathers are going
Speaker 1: to take the stand. Of course they don't have to.
Speaker 1: That remains to be seen. I guess how the case
Speaker 1: plays out for the government side of it. One of
Speaker 1: the things that's really interesting is a couple of parents
Speaker 1: are going to testify for the government, a couple from
Speaker 1: California named Bruce and Dzana Isaacson, and they were the
Speaker 1: first to play guilty of all the parents. They immediately
Speaker 1: did a deal and now they're going to testify what
Speaker 1: they were thinking, to give the jury some perspective of
Speaker 1: what parents may have been thinking, of what these two
Speaker 1: fathers may have been thinking. They're also going to call
Speaker 1: some coaching staff that played guil See and other co
Speaker 1: conspirators with Singer in his business to give insight. This
Speaker 1: was a gam that Singer was milking money. I mean
Speaker 1: the government when they announced this case said Singer had
Speaker 1: been doing this for years and had made twenty five millions.
Speaker 1: We've added up the bound of bribes in this case.
Speaker 1: I think we got to maybe ten million or eight millions.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this case several times, and initially I
Speaker 1: thought the prosecution has a slam dunk case, but it
Speaker 1: seems like the defense might knock some holes in the
Speaker 1: prosecution's case. What you can do get a plea deal
Speaker 1: is different from how it will play before a jury.
Speaker 1: I mean some people have said, oh, this is going
Speaker 1: to be so impalatable to the general public ensured that
Speaker 1: they're going to immediately convict and the judge. I'm in
Speaker 1: more than two hundred people to courts in Boston to
Speaker 1: have people fill out a questionnaire. And it's the thirteen
Speaker 1: page questionnaire that asked, how much do you know about
Speaker 1: this case? Have you ever had a child applied to college?
Speaker 1: Have you remember worked in the college system, you have
Speaker 1: work at fundraised? Do you have anything against cooperators? So
Speaker 1: they're going to try to weed out those with opinions
Speaker 1: that might be swayed one way or another, and to
Speaker 1: read out those people and try to get a fair
Speaker 1: and impartial jury. Thanks Pat, That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Patricia Hurtado.
Speaker 1: Another group of charismatic fish are the darters. Darters are
Speaker 1: a small, wonderfully colored bottom dwelling fish that looks more
Speaker 1: suited to live in a coral reef for tropical aquarium
Speaker 1: than the cold, fast flowing streams of the Smokies. The
Speaker 1: snail darter is a tiny Tennessee fish that made big
Speaker 1: waves in legal waters. That is, the three inch fish
Speaker 1: became famous when the case to save it went all
Speaker 1: the way to the Supreme Court, and the court's first
Speaker 1: decision on the landmark Endangered Species Act in articulated an
Speaker 1: expansive interpretation of the law in favor of protections for
Speaker 1: the little fish. Now, after nearly fifty years, the snail
Speaker 1: darter has been taken off the endangered species list, joining
Speaker 1: me as a lawyer who took that case to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. Zig Platter, professor at Boston College Law School,
Speaker 1: tell us about the snail darter. The snail darter was
Speaker 1: a tiny perch that was found in the last thirty
Speaker 1: miles of big flowing, clean river in Tennessee because sixty
Speaker 1: seven other damns basically eliminated wherever else it lived, and
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Value Authority decided they wanted to build their
Speaker 1: last damn to impound this river and the darter, it
Speaker 1: turns out, was you know, a perfect illustration two humans
Speaker 1: canary in the coal mine, that this was the last
Speaker 1: place left for humans who having credible trout fishing and
Speaker 1: boy Scouts and girl Scouts could do the float trips there,
Speaker 1: and the history of the Cherokee Indians. The little fish
Speaker 1: was in effect a barometer for a lot of really
Speaker 1: strong public values right at the edge of the Smoky
Speaker 1: Mountains National Park, and so the farmers fought to protect
Speaker 1: their farms by protecting the fish. Um there were three
Speaker 1: family farms that were condemned by the government agency, most
Speaker 1: of them for resale, not most of them not for
Speaker 1: the little lake. So it's a complicated story because you
Speaker 1: got to explain the agency was not building this for hydropower,
Speaker 1: It wasn't building it for flood control. It was it
Speaker 1: had to justify it by inventing a pretend city that
Speaker 1: they said would be built on the land that they
Speaker 1: had condemned. It never was, and also if this would
Speaker 1: be a recreational lake, it's not a Ydro lake in
Speaker 1: terms of his justifications that everything is connected to everything else.
Speaker 1: But it's a complicated story. How did the farmers take
Speaker 1: up this battle? Well, the farmers really were quite sophisticated,
Speaker 1: for you know, Appalachian farmers, who most of them had
Speaker 1: not gone to college. They got a lawyer to bring
Speaker 1: an environmental impact statement case first of all, and the
Speaker 1: government agency, we don't have to do an impact statement
Speaker 1: because we're an emergency agency or something. Uh. They went
Speaker 1: to court and they got an injunction. So for sixteen months,
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Valley Authority had to prepare an environmental impact statement.
Speaker 1: But once you do that, it's a procedure. They've they've
Speaker 1: done the procedure, they can go ahead and flood the valley.
Speaker 1: Um even though the farmers said, the valley, the agriculture,
Speaker 1: the tourism, the history is worth much more than than
Speaker 1: the last most marginal dam. But once they lost, they
Speaker 1: had about given up. And then suddenly this little fish
Speaker 1: was discovered, and the guy who discovered it was in
Speaker 1: the middle of a river. He bent over, and the shallow, beautiful,
Speaker 1: clear river he picked up this fish in his fingers.
Speaker 1: Then he walked over to the bank and he said
Speaker 1: to the farmer, this is an endangered fish and this
Speaker 1: might save your farms. And so they basically carried the case.
Speaker 1: My students and I did the law of it, and
Speaker 1: we had a local attorney on the trial as well.
Speaker 1: But the farmers, they went to Washington. They testified, this
Speaker 1: was grassroots democracy, an incredible story. And then you know,
Speaker 1: we won in the Supreme Court. Tell me how it
Speaker 1: got to the Supreme Court. Well, at trial, the judge
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, of course, decided in favor of the Tennessee
Speaker 1: Valley Authority, but he said, this dam is going to
Speaker 1: jeopardize the survival of the fish and it's going to
Speaker 1: destroy its natural habitat, but I'm not going to stop it.
Speaker 1: And then in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal said,
Speaker 1: excuse me, but those are both separate violations of the
Speaker 1: Endangered Species Act. So they stopped the project, and the
Speaker 1: agency took it to the Supreme Court of the United States,
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court said, well, Congress said, you cannot
Speaker 1: destroy an endangered species or destroy its habitat if you're
Speaker 1: a federal agency. Meanwhile, Of course, there was a firestorm
Speaker 1: going because this is the only law that most citizens
Speaker 1: could bring a suit for that would question the rationality
Speaker 1: of a project. Normally, all they have to do is
Speaker 1: do the paperwork. That's what an environmental impact statement was.
Speaker 1: So eventually, after the Supreme Court there was a cabinet
Speaker 1: level economic study about what was worth more the river
Speaker 1: development that the farmers wanted, or the dam develop but
Speaker 1: that the agency wanted. I mean, this was the God Committee,
Speaker 1: is an extraordinary tribunal that most people don't know about. Unanimously,
Speaker 1: they said the dam was never worth building in the
Speaker 1: first place, and it isn't worth completing because the river
Speaker 1: with agriculture, with the historical stuff, with tourism, with an
Speaker 1: industrial park. The farmers really made an amazingly good argument,
Speaker 1: and so it was vetoed. And then in Congress, the
Speaker 1: industries that were worried about the Endangered Species Act and
Speaker 1: the government agencies that build dams were able to change
Speaker 1: the law. The river died and the fish was wiped
Speaker 1: out in its major natural habitat. It was really heartbreaking
Speaker 1: politics because every member of Congress got a message from
Speaker 1: the Department of Interior and this high level committee saying
Speaker 1: this dam will destroy more than it will ever create.
Speaker 1: But America didn't know that because the firestorm of political
Speaker 1: rhetoric was all, you know, stupid little fish, gigantic hydro
Speaker 1: electric dam. The dam is a tiny little dam and
Speaker 1: it's not a hydro dam. And the cynical environmentalists who
Speaker 1: don't care about the fish, well, you know, we care
Speaker 1: about all living things, and in this case, this living
Speaker 1: thing was connected to economic values, and so it was
Speaker 1: heartbreaking to lose the Little Tennessee River. People were coming
Speaker 1: from hundreds of miles away to fish this place before
Speaker 1: it died. Who relocated the fish? Well, once a species
Speaker 1: is endangered, if Congress has said you cannot save it
Speaker 1: in its natural habitat as they said here, then the
Speaker 1: Department of Interior put together a recovery team and they said, well,
Speaker 1: what can we do to keep the species from dying out?
Speaker 1: And working with tv A, and t v A said okay,
Speaker 1: where can we transplant it? The Department of Interior worked
Speaker 1: out plan and so they put it in several rivers
Speaker 1: that weren't ideal. And so that's part of this story
Speaker 1: that you know, some people say, oh, well, when you
Speaker 1: have an endangered meansy to transplant it somewhere else. It
Speaker 1: took forty years. It took forty years. But the transplant
Speaker 1: now seems to be successful. But to fallback transplantation is
Speaker 1: you know, it's second best. No, it's not even second best,
Speaker 1: it's third best. First best is to keep a species,
Speaker 1: to conserve it in its natural habitat second is to
Speaker 1: put it into a place where it can live without
Speaker 1: any more human investment, human actions. But the third best,
Speaker 1: I guess is what they did because these rivers in
Speaker 1: the summertime got hot, didn't have enough oxygen. So t
Speaker 1: v A now has to pump oxygen into the transplant
Speaker 1: rivers to keep the fish alive. And they're pulsing their
Speaker 1: dams to wash the mud away so that the fish
Speaker 1: can have spawning beds, egg and children in the clean
Speaker 1: gravel below some of these dams. So the fish are surviving,
Speaker 1: but they depend on a government agency maintaining oxygen pumping
Speaker 1: into the water and a special flushing water pressure process
Speaker 1: and the dams. And that's not ideal. You you want
Speaker 1: a transplant that doesn't require human support forever. That's what
Speaker 1: we've got. The government said it's no longer in danger
Speaker 1: of extinction. Is that true or not true? That's right.
Speaker 1: The scientist said, if the t v A keeps putting
Speaker 1: liquid oxygen into the water and keeps flushing the dams
Speaker 1: in a way it hadn't done before so as to
Speaker 1: clean alternative rivers where the fish could survive, then the
Speaker 1: fish can survive. It's no longer endangered. And that's science,
Speaker 1: and I believe it's true. It's just we have to
Speaker 1: be sure that those measures to conserve the species go
Speaker 1: on how long? Forever? Forever? So wouldn't it have been
Speaker 1: better than to leave it on the endangered species list?
Speaker 1: Why did you file a petition to delist it? That's
Speaker 1: a really tough question, and there complicated answers and scientific terms.
Speaker 1: It was no longer endangered because the agencies were pumping
Speaker 1: oxygen and blowing the water clean. So, but this more
Speaker 1: to it. The prior federal administration was attacking the Endangered
Speaker 1: Species Act. It was cutting regulations this way and that
Speaker 1: that the protected species. And we started hearing that there
Speaker 1: was a specific plan to delist the snail darter in
Speaker 1: a way that would not protect it, and so it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of preemptive. We don't like transplantation. But um,
Speaker 1: by filing the petition ourselves, we sort of get special standing.
Speaker 1: Two make sure that those measures continue, that the delisting
Speaker 1: regulation will require those actions to go on forever. And
Speaker 1: you know, if there's ever a double cross, if the
Speaker 1: agency stopped protecting the fish, we will be able under
Speaker 1: the delisting regulation immediately to file for emergency relisting. And
Speaker 1: it's it's unfortunate that we have to talk about it
Speaker 1: in those terms, but I'm thinking that in the circumstances
Speaker 1: it was going to be delisted by the prior administration.
Speaker 1: We filed in July, there was still a year and
Speaker 1: a half of the prior administration or more, and the
Speaker 1: safest thing to do was to try to be part
Speaker 1: of the process to make sure that maintenance of the
Speaker 1: protections could could be assured. What did environmentalists learned from
Speaker 1: the whole saga of the snail darter? Well, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting. In spite of the tremendous criticism that was
Speaker 1: poured against the snail darter, I mean it really was.
Speaker 1: We were called fringe lunatics and Russia Limball called us
Speaker 1: homo socialists. I mean, protecting a stupid little fish against
Speaker 1: a gigantic hydro electric dam. Of course that wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: But this is the point. Even when it was thought
Speaker 1: to be an extreme as the courts enforced the law.
Speaker 1: And that is a precedent that makes people pay attention
Speaker 1: to the law even if they don't like it, if
Speaker 1: they know that even in that case, the courts enforced it.
Speaker 1: So so there is that a really good precedent came
Speaker 1: from it. And the species, you know, the Endangered Species
Speaker 1: Act is recovered a fair number of species over the years.
Speaker 1: The Act works. The Clean Water Act works because the
Speaker 1: water and the rivers where they put the fish is
Speaker 1: cleaner than it was um back forty years ago. So
Speaker 1: so it's one of those things where you make the
Speaker 1: best decision you can in the circumstances when the really
Speaker 1: best solution for everyone, for the farmers, for fisherman, for
Speaker 1: the Cherokee Indians that had their sacred sites in this
Speaker 1: river area, and for the fish. You when you lose
Speaker 1: it there, you do the best you can somewhere else. Um.
Speaker 1: But the president in the law is a good strong one.
Speaker 1: Tell me what the precedent is and whether you think
Speaker 1: this Supreme Court would recognize that precedent today. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's of course a complicated question. The present Supreme Court says,
Speaker 1: the members who have been put there recently say that
Speaker 1: they generally follow precedent. They don't overturn prior Supreme Court decisions.
Speaker 1: Now we'll see with Roe versus Way, that will be
Speaker 1: of course a question. And but this was such a
Speaker 1: declaratory decision by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: Warren Burger, saying that the Endangered Species Act represents institutionalized caution.
Speaker 1: You don't destroy a species when if there's any possible alternative,
Speaker 1: and of course in most of these cases there are alternatives.
Speaker 1: The president is that the courts will enforce the protection
Speaker 1: of the species and of its habitat um. And that's
Speaker 1: really something. It's it's cited all the time for the
Speaker 1: importance of not having a court overturn a law, and um,
Speaker 1: it's been used to protect many other species. But it's
Speaker 1: also been used in other settings too, where where there's
Speaker 1: a question of whether the Water Pollution Act is going
Speaker 1: to be Well, you cite t V a versus Hill,
Speaker 1: the Stale Darter case, and courts say, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that extreme case where the courts just enforced the law.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what the law hust be. And if
Speaker 1: Congress is going to change it, and you know, Congress
Speaker 1: is always a question. It's it's but, but you know,
Speaker 1: the Congress doesn't easily change the law. Uh, it holds
Speaker 1: things together and over time, very often endangered species are
Speaker 1: sensitive little indicators of human importance, of human economics as
Speaker 1: well as ecology. The the plan that the farmers did
Speaker 1: for the river had a tourism route from the Interstates,
Speaker 1: going up through the valley, through these historic areas, through
Speaker 1: the farmland into the Smoky's Park it which gets eleven
Speaker 1: million people a year. It would have been an incredible
Speaker 1: money maker for the local region instead of just one
Speaker 1: more damn the dam which is already getting polluted with algae.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being the Bloomberg Law Show. That's Zig Platter,
Speaker 1: a professor at Boston College Law School. And that's it
Speaker 1: for this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you
Speaker 1: can always at the latest legal news on our Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
Speaker 1: and at www dot Bloomberg dot com. Slash podcast Last Law.
Speaker 1: I'm John Rosso and you're listening to Bloomberg,