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

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Speaker 1: At oral arguments, Supreme Court justices on both sides of

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Speaker 1: the ideological spectrum signal they're inclined to let Kentucky's Republican

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Speaker 1: Attorney general take over the defense of a law that

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Speaker 1: would sharply restrict abortion after the fift week of pregnancy.

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Speaker 1: The case is the opening act in a Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: term that could eviscerate the constitutional right to an abortion.

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Speaker 1: Joining me as Bloomberg Supreme Court reporter Greg Store Greg,

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Speaker 1: how many abortion clinics are there in Kentucky? There are two,

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Speaker 1: they're both in Louisville, and there's only one, the E.

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Speaker 1: MW Clinic that's at the center of the Supreme Court case,

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Speaker 1: where you can get an abortion after fourteen weeks of pregnancy.

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Speaker 1: And you went down there. Tell us about what it's

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Speaker 1: like outside and going into the clinic. Well, they performed

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Speaker 1: abortions five days a week and every day. I was

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Speaker 1: only there for one, but I'm told it's every day.

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Speaker 1: There are protesters out there. There are people, usually a

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Speaker 1: group of Catholics who are preying, praying the Rosary. There

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Speaker 1: are people with signs on the day I was there,

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Speaker 1: there was a preacher who had a microphone who was

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Speaker 1: using that to amplify his voice. And you know, inevitably,

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Speaker 1: when patients start to come at eight o'clock, there will

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Speaker 1: be a group of people that try to talk to

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Speaker 1: them and try to persuade them not to go inside.

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Speaker 1: I can imagine it's very intimidating to go into the clinic.

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Speaker 1: Does it stop people from trying to get abortions? Do?

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Speaker 1: You know? Not? Based on what I saw there, and

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Speaker 1: when I talked to some of the anti abortion protesters

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Speaker 1: out there, they did say there were examples. There are

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Speaker 1: people they can point to that chose not to have

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Speaker 1: an abortion, And one woman even showed me a picture

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Speaker 1: of a woman with her family and said that she

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Speaker 1: had been talked out of having an abortion. Uh, it's

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Speaker 1: not clear how much of that actually happens at the

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Speaker 1: actual site there, um, but but folks say it does

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Speaker 1: happen at least some of the time. Does the clinic

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Speaker 1: do anything to protect the women who are arriving there?

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Speaker 1: On the morning I was there, there about a half

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Speaker 1: a dozen escorts, And what they say they do is

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Speaker 1: basically just just try to create space when when woman

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Speaker 1: parks her car, they might go up to and say,

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Speaker 1: would you like me to walk in with you? And

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Speaker 1: there that just they walk alongside her and just serve

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Speaker 1: as a little buffer. There's there's no physical contact that

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Speaker 1: I've seen between escorts and protesters, but they give her

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Speaker 1: somebody to walk alongside into the building. And Kentucky has

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Speaker 1: passed how many laws in the last four years? How

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Speaker 1: many anti abortion laws? They're about a dozen laws that

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Speaker 1: Kentucky has passed. It's a state that has mostly been

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Speaker 1: rooted controlled by Republicans, although there is now a democratic governor.

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Speaker 1: This particular law was actually passed overwhelmingly by the Kentucky

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Speaker 1: General Assembly. So tell us about this law that's at

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Speaker 1: the center of the Supreme Court case. Yeah, what this

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Speaker 1: law does is basically bean abortion after about fifteen weeks

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Speaker 1: of pregnancy. Targets the most common technique used at that

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Speaker 1: stage called dilation and evacuation or d n E. And

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Speaker 1: that procedure involves pulling the fetus out in a way

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Speaker 1: that sometimes causes a tissue to separate. And what this

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Speaker 1: law says is you can't quote dismember the fetus unless

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Speaker 1: it is already dead. And the abortion providers said, there's

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Speaker 1: really no safe and effective way of performing an abortion, uh,

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Speaker 1: if you have to first make sure that the fetus

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Speaker 1: is dead. So essentially, this law makes it all but

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Speaker 1: impossible to have an abortion after fifteen weeks. So, now

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Speaker 1: what is the issue at the Supreme Court? So the

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Speaker 1: issue is, actually, it's really important, but it's a somewhat

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Speaker 1: technical issue. It has to do with the effort by

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Speaker 1: the Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron to take over the litigation.

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Speaker 1: What happened was because of the change over in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen election in Kentucky. It meant that the governor's office

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Speaker 1: went from being Republican to Democrat, and they turn in

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Speaker 1: the general's office went the other way, went from being

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Speaker 1: Democrat to Republican. And after a federal appeals court struck

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Speaker 1: this law down as being unconstitutional, the Democratic administration of

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Speaker 1: Governor Andy Basher decided not to press any further appeals,

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Speaker 1: and the new Republican Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, said, I'd

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Speaker 1: like to intervene and take over the defense of the law.

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Speaker 1: The federal appeals court the six Circuits said no, you

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Speaker 1: can't do that at such a late stage in the litigation.

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Speaker 1: Cameron went up to the Supreme Court. So the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court is considering whether Cameron can be allowed to intervene

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Speaker 1: and press further appeals, possibly including a Supreme Court of Appeal.

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Speaker 1: Justices from both sides of the ideological spectrum seemed concerned

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Speaker 1: about the same thing. The concerns seemed to be that

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Speaker 1: nobody would be allowed to defend this law. That you

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Speaker 1: have a state where you have some officials who want

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Speaker 1: to be able to keep pressing appeals, and the lower

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Speaker 1: court didn't let them do that. So even among some

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Speaker 1: of the Democratic appointed justices Stephen Bryer Elena Kagan, there

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Speaker 1: was concerned that the lower court ruling would bar the

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Speaker 1: state from further defending the law. That is, of course,

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Speaker 1: even though Justices Briar and Kagan almost certainly would say

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Speaker 1: this law is unconstitutional based on Supreme Court president, what

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Speaker 1: reason do the appellate court give for saying that the

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Speaker 1: Attorney general couldn't step in. It's somewhat technical, but essentially

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Speaker 1: the six circuits said he did it too late. So

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Speaker 1: the Attorney General, in the form of Andy Basher who

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Speaker 1: is now the governor, at the early stage in the

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Speaker 1: litigation had said I'm not going to defend the law

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Speaker 1: and I will buy body any judgment. Then the case

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Speaker 1: went forward about Bashier defending it the state laws at

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Speaker 1: the district court level. The Health Secretary of Republican appealed

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Speaker 1: up to the Sixth Circuit. Still the Attorney General's office

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Speaker 1: is not involved. And then after the Sixth Circuit rule,

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Speaker 1: that's when Daniel Cameron, after he had been elected, said

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Speaker 1: I want to intervene now, and I want to seek

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Speaker 1: review by a bigger panel of judges so called on

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Speaker 1: bank review at the Sixth Circuit. And the six Circuits said, no,

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Speaker 1: it's too late for you to jump in and do that.

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Speaker 1: This is a procedural question. Why might this case be

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Speaker 1: important in the battle of abortion rights. Well, it's important

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Speaker 1: because if if Cameron loses in this case, this Kentucky

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Speaker 1: law is void, it can't be defended anymore. So it

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Speaker 1: matters just in terms of this particular law. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's also you know a bit of a prelude. This

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Speaker 1: is going to be a huge Supreme Court term for

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Speaker 1: abortion rights. In December, they're going to hear arguments on

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Speaker 1: this Mississippi law. Mississippi is asking the Supreme Court to

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Speaker 1: gut or even overturn the review Wade ruling. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then of course you've got the Texas law floating around

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Speaker 1: out there too, and and the Court might be asked

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Speaker 1: to get back involved in that case that involves a

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Speaker 1: six week a band after six weeks of pregnancy. And

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Speaker 1: so this case, you know, could give us some signals

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Speaker 1: as to what the Court's going to do on the

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Speaker 1: is on those bigger questions. Uh. Certainly it's starting to

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Speaker 1: wet people's appetite for this, uh, this big topic of abortion.

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Speaker 1: It seems a little bit convenient that you have that

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Speaker 1: Mississippi case and then you have the Texas case in

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Speaker 1: this case, all sort of coming to ahead at the

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Speaker 1: same time. Is that just coincidence? It's not. You know,

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Speaker 1: we have a much more conservative Supreme Court right now.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons to think they will be

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Speaker 1: more receptive to abortion restrictions than the Court has been. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And because of that, people who are opposed abortion are

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Speaker 1: passing more laws at the state level, filing more appeals, uh,

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Speaker 1: pushing the issue because they think they have a real

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Speaker 1: chance to to change the law, maybe even to go

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Speaker 1: as far as as overturning Roe v. Wade. But certainly

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Speaker 1: giving states more ability to enact tough abortion restrictions. From

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Speaker 1: all indications, the justices are going to rule that the

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Speaker 1: Kentucky Attorney General has to be allowed to defend the law. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it sure seems like that's what's going to happen, That

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Speaker 1: they will say that that he can take over the

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Speaker 1: defense pressed further appeals. It seems like that is going

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Speaker 1: to get at least six votes and maybe as many

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Speaker 1: as eight. And tell us corner poles. Most Americans still

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Speaker 1: support a right to abortion. What do they feel about restrictions.

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Speaker 1: They do support the general right to an abortion, but

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Speaker 1: they also support some restrictions. Now what exactly that means, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, is a bit in the details, and it

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Speaker 1: might depend on how the question is asked. Um. Even

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Speaker 1: though in this abortion debate at the Supreme Court sometimes

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Speaker 1: it might seem like it seem like both sides are

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Speaker 1: very absolutist. A lot of people in the American public, uh,

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Speaker 1: are somewhere in the middle and do think that there

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Speaker 1: should be some right the end of pregnancy, but not

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Speaker 1: an afflute right. And also in your story, you talk

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Speaker 1: about how while in the US states in recent years

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Speaker 1: have been enacting more and more laws to try to

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Speaker 1: restrict abortion rights or even banned them, while in other countries,

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Speaker 1: Catholic countries, they've been going in the opposite direction. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's it's quite remarkable that this is happening. You know.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes you see the United States moving in tandem with

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Speaker 1: with other countries, but Mexico, Ireland both have started allowing

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Speaker 1: or at least giving more freedom for women to end pregnancies.

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Speaker 1: UM in the US again in large part, are certainly

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Speaker 1: in part because of the knowledge that you have a

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Speaker 1: more conservative Supreme Court. The anti abortion forces are certainly

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Speaker 1: on the march. So while I have you, you know,

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Speaker 1: last term, when it was over the phone the oral arguments,

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Speaker 1: you had the Chief Justice going in order of seniority

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Speaker 1: for the questioning, so it was very ordered, unlike the

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Speaker 1: hot bench we might have seen the past. What's it

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Speaker 1: like this term when they're back in the courtroom. It's

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Speaker 1: a bit of a hybrid. It's not totally back to

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Speaker 1: the free for all that we used to have UM,

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Speaker 1: where you didn't know who was going to jump in

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Speaker 1: when UM curiously, and I believe every argument so far,

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Speaker 1: in every half of each argument, the first question has

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Speaker 1: been asked by Justice Clarence Thomas. Uh and you know,

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Speaker 1: he's a guy who went a decade without asking a question.

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Speaker 1: Previously didn't like participating in oral arguments. It seems as

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Speaker 1: though the justices have all collectively agreed that they're going

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Speaker 1: to let Justice Thomas ask the first question. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: apparently that he's now comfortable doing that. Um and Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's changed the dynamic of the argument

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Speaker 1: just because you get to hear a little bit of

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Speaker 1: what he thinks during it, and then at the end

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Speaker 1: the Chief Justice says, basically, anybody got any more questions? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and he's he tries to do that in seniority order,

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Speaker 1: which means that when he's on the bench he's looking

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Speaker 1: back and forth. First, Justice Thomas, do you have anything?

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Speaker 1: And Justice Brian do we have anything. It can be

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Speaker 1: a little bit awkward, but in general the arguments, what

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Speaker 1: it's done is it has let all the justices, or

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Speaker 1: seems like it's let all the justices know that they

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Speaker 1: will have a chance to ask their question. They may

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Speaker 1: just have to be patient and wait till the end.

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Speaker 1: And how many people are in the courtroom itself, it

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Speaker 1: has been uh, you know, something south of maybe eighty

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Speaker 1: or so, depends on the case a little bit. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It's basically just the lawyers who are arguing, the lawyer

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Speaker 1: who's arguing in, one other lawyer on each side, a

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Speaker 1: few members of the press, the justices, law clerks, and

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Speaker 1: a few other court officials and special guests. General public

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Speaker 1: is excluded. You know. At most maybe the courtroom is

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Speaker 1: a quarter filled, a lot less than in a normal argument.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for being on the show, Greg. That's

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News Supreme Court reporter Greg's store. It's a closely

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Speaker 1: watched case with implications for how states manage natural resources nationwide.

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Speaker 1: Mississippi claims that Tennessee is pumping of an interstate aquifer,

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Speaker 1: is vacuuming slow moving underground water into the Memphis area

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Speaker 1: that could not occur naturally, increasing costs of Mississippi's water pumping.

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Speaker 1: At the oral arguments, the justices cast doubt on Mississippi's

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Speaker 1: claim for damages. Joining me is Robin Craig, a professor

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Speaker 1: at USC Gould School of Law. Robin tell us about

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Speaker 1: the issue here. So, in Mississippi versus Tennessee, we have

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Speaker 1: an interstate dispute over a shared water resource. That's not new.

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Speaker 1: What's new is two things. First of all, this is

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Speaker 1: the first case to reach the Supreme Court um arguing

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Speaker 1: about groundwater in an aquifer. And second, what's interesting about

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Speaker 1: this case is that Mississippi is not arguing the traditional

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Speaker 1: argument that states make in this situation, which is for

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Speaker 1: equitable apportionment of the aquifer among the states that share it,

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Speaker 1: but rather, it's arguing a territorial claim, basically asserting that

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Speaker 1: because Memphis is pumping so much water and creating a

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Speaker 1: cone of depression in the aquifer that crosses into Mississippi's territory,

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Speaker 1: that Mississippi should be entitled to some fairly large damages.

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Speaker 1: So basically, Mississippi is arguing that Tennessee is stealing its groundwater.

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Speaker 1: Was there one issue that dominated the oral arguments? Probably

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Speaker 1: what the correct cause of action should be? There is

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Speaker 1: there were really two issues that came up in oral argument.

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Speaker 1: One was what the justices should do with the case

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Speaker 1: if they dismissed it, But the main one was does

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Speaker 1: Mississippi really of a territorials boverty claim to the groundwater

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Speaker 1: or should this really be an equitable apportionate case? And um,

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Speaker 1: you know, it was interesting because the justices were interested

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Speaker 1: both in how to distinguish Mississippi's potential claim factually from

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Speaker 1: things that go on with surface water, but they were

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Speaker 1: also interested in the limits of their equitable apportionate jurisdiction,

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Speaker 1: so they didn't seem to want to go with Mississippi,

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Speaker 1: but they were also a little bit concerned about how

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Speaker 1: many of these groundwater cases they might get in the future.

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Speaker 1: Explain equitable apportionment, okay. Equitable apportionment is the doctrine that

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court made up to accommodate cases where states

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Speaker 1: share natural resources. It's usually water uh and in the

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Speaker 1: state river, for example, and the one state that you

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Speaker 1: almost always the downstream state, is complaining that the upstream

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Speaker 1: state is taking too much of the resource uh and,

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Speaker 1: so equitable apportionment states come to the Supreme Court through

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Speaker 1: original jurisdiction so they don't have to go through the

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Speaker 1: trial courts uh and then UM asked the Court to

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Speaker 1: basically divide the resource among the states that share it.

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Speaker 1: With water. In particular, the Supreme Court recognized early on

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Speaker 1: that having access to water having a water supply is

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Speaker 1: an important aspect of state sovereignty. So equitable apportionment, at

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Speaker 1: its core, is a way to accommodate conflicting planes of

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Speaker 1: sovereignty over resources without having the states go to war

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Speaker 1: with each other. At one point, did the justices question

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Speaker 1: whether this was actually water or not? This groundwater? Yes,

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Speaker 1: Chief Justice Robberts, actually I got into an interesting little

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Speaker 1: conversation about the science of groundwater UM and his understanding

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Speaker 1: that when water is sitting in an aquifer, at least

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Speaker 1: some kinds of aquifers, it's not really just a pool

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Speaker 1: of water sitting on bedrock. It's mud or silt or

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Speaker 1: uh in this case, water mixed with sand and and

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Speaker 1: so he he asked, is that is that really water? Um,

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Speaker 1: you know? Or is it mud or silt until you

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Speaker 1: pull it out to the surface. Uh? And UH Counsel

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Speaker 1: for Tennessee, I think probably quite properly answered, you can

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Speaker 1: withdraw it as relatively pure water. And in fact, groundwater

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Speaker 1: is some of the purest water you can withdraw, which

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Speaker 1: is why UH cities like to use it for drinking water.

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Speaker 1: So uh, but yes, it was. It was an interesting question.

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Speaker 1: Didn't seem to concern most of the rest of the court,

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Speaker 1: but that was an interesting bit of questioning there. And

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Speaker 1: Justice Sonia Soto Mayor seemed sort of exasperated with Mississippi

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Speaker 1: for bringing these damages. She said, both courts told you

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Speaker 1: you've got to seek equitable apportionment. Now this is the

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Speaker 1: third time you've done this. When is enough enough? Exactly? Um?

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Speaker 1: And and that goes to that second issue of what

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Speaker 1: if the court is not going to allow Mississippi to

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Speaker 1: have its territorial claim, what should it do with the case. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this case has been going on for a while, uh

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Speaker 1: sixty years, Mrs Tupp has made a couple of attempts

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Speaker 1: to make this argument. And um so, Justice so de

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Speaker 1: Mayora was getting at an issue that a lot of

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Speaker 1: the justices asked about in one form or another, of

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Speaker 1: if the court says Mississippi can't bring this claim, does

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Speaker 1: it dismiss the case with prejudice? H Does it say, well,

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Speaker 1: you never raised equitable apportionments, so if you want to

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Speaker 1: raise that file a do case or doesn't let Mississippi

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Speaker 1: go back and just amend its complaint and add an

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Speaker 1: equitable apportionate claim. Um so. Uh. You know, like I said,

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Speaker 1: there was a fair amount of questioning on that to

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Speaker 1: various degrees. There were a couple of justices who seemed

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Speaker 1: a little more sympathetic to Mississippi, saying, hey, you want

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Speaker 1: to preserve that claim, don't you if we decide against

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Speaker 1: you on the law um, there were a couple of

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Speaker 1: justices who seemed willing to grab the procedural out and

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Speaker 1: maybe just be able to dismiss this case on the

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Speaker 1: grounds that Mississippi had not asked to amend its complaint

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Speaker 1: and Mississippi has steadfastly refused to allege an equitable apportion

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Speaker 1: to claim. It's like, okay, you know, if you decide

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Speaker 1: you want to bring that claim, fine, but you're gonna

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Speaker 1: have to file a whole new lawsuit to do it.

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Speaker 1: So that that's one of the things that will be

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Speaker 1: interesting to see is what they actually decide to do

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Speaker 1: with the disposition of the case if they rule against Mississippi.

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Speaker 1: A quarter pointed special Master earlier rule that Mississippi should

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Speaker 1: have pursued a claim for equitable apportionment. Why doesn't Mississippi

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Speaker 1: want to pursue that equitable apport portionment? What would it

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Speaker 1: gets from equitable apportionment? Well, Mississippi's view of equitable apportionment

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Speaker 1: apportionment is it's mainly a prospective remedy. Um. It tells

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Speaker 1: the states how to behave in the future. Who's entitled

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Speaker 1: to how much water or how much pumping from an aquifer? Uh?

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Speaker 1: And what it really wants is damages. It thinks its

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Speaker 1: sovereignty has been intruded upon. Um. It's sort of the

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Speaker 1: state level equivalent of a trespass, and it wants those damages.

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Speaker 1: And under equitable apportionate claims there are ways to get damages,

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Speaker 1: but um, not until the offending state has clearly taken

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Speaker 1: more than its fair share, which usually requires that you've

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Speaker 1: divided up the resource in the first place. So um,

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Speaker 1: that's the difference from Mississippi's perspective. Has Mrs Sippy suffered

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Speaker 1: any damages here? Not, according to Tennessee, aside from that

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Speaker 1: injury or perceived injury to his sovereignty. Uh. There seems

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Speaker 1: to be plenty of water in the aquifer. Uh. Mississippi

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Speaker 1: also has pumps along the border. Everybody seems to be

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Speaker 1: getting all the water they need. So not in the

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Speaker 1: typical sense of an injury in these cases. Uh. So Um.

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Speaker 1: Another reason why Mississippi doesn't want to go the equitable

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Speaker 1: apportionment route because before a state can actually get the

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Speaker 1: court to equitably apportion a water body, it has to

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Speaker 1: show pretty substantial injury from what the other states are doing.

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Speaker 1: And I have seen no facts that would indicate that

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Speaker 1: Mississippi could make that showing the Biden administration and a

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Speaker 1: bi part is in a group of states sided with Tennessee,

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Speaker 1: why did they side with Tennessee? Pretty much everyone is fighting.

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Speaker 1: Uh I I think you know. The states are mostly

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Speaker 1: Western states who have been involved in either equitably apportioning

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Speaker 1: rivers or interstate compacts to govern rivers. And even those

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Speaker 1: interstate compacts, however, tend to be based on the background

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Speaker 1: principles of equitable apportionment that all states are coequal sovereigns

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Speaker 1: and they should be able to share in the resource. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And and so coming up with a completely new rule

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Speaker 1: for groundwater has the potential to upend um how states

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Speaker 1: think about sharing these resources in general. Uh. The other

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Speaker 1: complication that could come up, and it was increasingly coming up,

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Speaker 1: is in these agreements about surface water. Um. It is

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Speaker 1: it is becoming increasingly clear for a lot of them

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Speaker 1: that groundwater pumping can affect the surface water as well.

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Speaker 1: And so there's there's been a few interstate compact cases

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Speaker 1: before the Court in the last few years, where um,

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Speaker 1: nothing was going wrong with the surface water per se,

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Speaker 1: except that groundwater pumping in one state or the other

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Speaker 1: was affecting the surface water. There was so much groundwater

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Speaker 1: pumping going on that it was actually drawing down the

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Speaker 1: surface water. And so these cases have been coming up

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Speaker 1: of whether that hydrologically connected groundwater is part of the

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Speaker 1: original compact um. Now, to some extent, that depends on

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Speaker 1: what the compact originally said. But if the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: suddenly announces a completely different role for shared groundwater water,

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Speaker 1: then eventually we're going to run into the problem um,

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Speaker 1: not only of how to apply that rule as a

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Speaker 1: practical matter, which is part of what the justices were

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Speaker 1: getting out in this case, but also what to do

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Speaker 1: in these other cases when it turns out that the

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Speaker 1: groundwater and the surface water are so intimately connected that

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Speaker 1: we really need to do really do need to wrap

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Speaker 1: in the groundwater to effectuate the surface water agreement. So

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of complications that that could come

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Speaker 1: up with that from that, but I think a large

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Speaker 1: part of it is also, you know, equitable portionment isn't easy,

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Speaker 1: but we understand it. We know how it works. We

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Speaker 1: can deal with it. UM. Don't grow us a whole

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Speaker 1: new set of rules in these cases or these situations

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Speaker 1: that are already fairly complicated to negotiate. So it seems

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Speaker 1: pretty clear from the oral arguments that Mississippi is going

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Speaker 1: to lose. But is the question what the Justice has

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Speaker 1: decided to do with the case? I think so, yes,

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Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think it's pretty clear that

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Speaker 1: Mississippi is going to lose. Um. The interesting question for

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Speaker 1: me is how much more the Court decides it wants

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Speaker 1: to say. Um. I this actually could be one of

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Speaker 1: the shortest Supreme Court opinions in an interstate water case

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Speaker 1: ever written. Is the Court basically just wants to say

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Speaker 1: Mississippi has alleged this territorial claimed tot groundwater. There is

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Speaker 1: no legal basis for that claim. It has failed to

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Speaker 1: stay the cause of action case to Smith, the opinion

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Speaker 1: really could be that short. Um. But you know, if

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Speaker 1: the justices decided instead that they want to get some

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Speaker 1: of the other issues that were raised to start to

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Speaker 1: talk about the role of state sovereignty. There was there

395
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Speaker 1: was an interesting debate that came up at the end

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Speaker 1: of the case UM where the United States had one

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Speaker 1: view of state sovereignty and the role of equitable apportionments,

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Speaker 1: and Mississippi had a very different view. You know, if

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Speaker 1: they want to get into that, if they want to

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Speaker 1: get into the limits of equitable apportionment itself, trying to

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Speaker 1: put some uh bumpers on that doctrine to stem what

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Speaker 1: what some of the justices were clearly fearing would be

403
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Speaker 1: a flood of the use groundwater cases. Um, then it

404
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:47,119
Speaker 1: could get to be a very interesting opinion and could

405
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Speaker 1: really influenced interstate water law for probably the rest of

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Speaker 1: the century. Um so uh I if I had to

407
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Speaker 1: put money on it, I think they're to go with

408
00:27:00,800 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: the shorter opinion and save the complicated questions for when

409
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: they actually get a complaint asking for equitable apportionment of

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Speaker 1: an aquifer. But you never know, they might decide that

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Speaker 1: they want to say something about those other issues in

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Speaker 1: the process. It seems like there's been a few of

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Speaker 1: these water rights cases between states. Is there a reason

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00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: why they're popping up now? I think so, yes, they's

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Speaker 1: the cases that are are coming up now are Eastern cases.

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Speaker 1: So the big one last term was Florida versus Georgia,

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Speaker 1: which has been going on forever. Um, that's a debate. UM.

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Speaker 1: You know the Western well, there actually was a very

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00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: early interstate equitable apportionment case between New York and New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: But aside from that, most of the big cases have

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00:27:58,119 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: involved Western states. West rivers, dry country very easy to

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Speaker 1: overuse those rivers, over appropriate them, take too much water out.

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Speaker 1: But the Eastern States, I think are starting to run

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Speaker 1: into some of the same issues that their water supplies

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00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:21,480
Speaker 1: aren't as secure as they used to be. Um. There

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Speaker 1: are big cities that need more water than local supplies

427
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Speaker 1: actually allow for um. And and we're also getting some

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00:28:33,640 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: situations in the Western States where the agreements that were

429
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: hashed out in some cases of century ago are now

430
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Speaker 1: being tested by new climatological conditions. Um that they didn't

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Speaker 1: put in provisions to deal with a warming climate or

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Speaker 1: you know, bigger flood disasters or or whatnot. And so

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Speaker 1: I think both reasons, um, Uh, the the agreements we

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Speaker 1: thought were settled decades ago are suddenly becoming more problematic again.

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Speaker 1: And we have a whole new set of states that

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Speaker 1: are running into interstate water issues in ways that they

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Speaker 1: traditionally haven't. And so I think we're gonna keep seeing.

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Speaker 1: You know, a few of these cases sprinkled in uh

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Speaker 1: before the Supreme Court, most terms going forward. Thanks for

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Speaker 1: being the Bloomberg Glass Show. Robin. That's Professor Robin Craig

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Speaker 1: of USC Gould School of Law. And that's it for

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Speaker 1: this edition of the Bloomberg Glass Show. I'm June Grosso.

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Speaker 1: When you're listening to Bloomberg