On Tuesday, July 19, 2005, President Bush nominated John G. Roberts, Jr., to the Supreme Court. As part of its ongoing investigation into Bush’s federal court nominees, CIR has made Roberts’ 2003 financial disclosure statement and Senate confirmation questionnaire freely and easily accessible to the public on the Courting Influence web site.
During Bush’s first term, our investigation focused on the administration’s 59 judicial nominees to federal courts of appeals and the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, which hears major property rights claims and land disputes. This reporting revealed that more than a third of President Bush’s nominees to these federal courts — including Roberts — has a history of working as lawyers and lobbyists on behalf of the oil, gas and energy industries.
In a 2004 article on www.CourtingInfluence.net, “Former Energy Industry Lobbyists Among Nominees,” CIR recounts Roberts’ experience supporting the mining industry:
“Another Bush judicial appointee with experience representing the mining industry is John G. Roberts, Jr., a former colleague of George Miller’s at the Hogan & Hartson law and lobbying firm. Roberts was one of the co-authors of Miller’s amicus brief on behalf of the National Mining Association’s challenge to the government ban on ‘mountaintop removal’. In 2003, Roberts was confirmed to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where earlier this year he ruled against environmentalists who were pushing for more restrictive government regulations of copper smelters–many of whom are members of the National Mining Association that Roberts once represented. As a lobbyist in the 1990s, Roberts worked on behalf of the peanut industry, pushing federal legislation that maintained government subsidies which the GAO estimated cost consumers $500 million a year. Agricultural and mining interests are often involved in regulatory cases that come before the DC Circuit Court where Roberts now sits.”
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