The Supreme Court wrapped up its term last week, and will now recess for the summer. There were lots of headline cases, ranging from whether cities can re-test job applicants if not enough minorities qualify the first time around (they can't) to whether schools can strip-search teenage students in search for prescription drugs (they also can't). Justice Souter's resignation and Judge Sotomayor's likely confirmation are also grabbing a lot of attention.

What has been under-reported, however, are the Court's environmental law cases this term. Most of the decisions came earlier in the term and were buried in the headlines. Yesterday the NYT's Adam Liptak ran a piece focusing on the five environmental law cases, and it's well worth a read. In each of the five cases before the Court this term, the environmentalists lost. From the article:

The court allowed Navy exercises using sonar that threatened whales off California. It limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills. It made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations and easier to dump mining waste into an Alaskan lake. And it allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to use cost-benefit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.

Liptak spends the bulk of the article looking at the Justices. Sam Alito replacing Sandra Day O'Connor marked a shift in the Court's environmental balance, with John Roberts' pro-government and pro-business bent tilting the windmill further. Justice Kennedy was likely the swing vote in many of the cases. And Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation will likely not affect the balance much as she's expect to vote similarly to David Souter. I agree with most of this analysis, but I think the really interesting part is the look to the future. If ACES becomes law, what challenges will be brought before the Supreme Court, and how will the Court rule?