Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Eco-Grade: F

Start date: September 29, 2005

Appointed by: President George W. Bush (R)

• Of the cases we considered, Roberts voted in favor of environmental victories 26.08% of the time.  
• Roberts spent the first eight years as chief justice voting against stronger environmental protections.
• Roberts helped pass two significant environmental victories in his ninth year in office.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. is a practitioner of “judicial constraint,” and has been quoted saying he’s an “avid supporter of the belief that the role of the court is an umpire, meaning that the role is to interpret the rules, not create them.”2

In 2007, Roberts voted against Massachusetts v. EPA. In this landmark case, the majority voted in favor of Massachusetts, ruling that greenhouse gas emissions are considered “air pollutants” under the Clean Air Act and that states can sue the EPA if it fails to regulate them. 

Roberts voted against the state, saying he would have dismissed its claims. Chief Justice Roberts’ dissenting opinion argued that Massachusetts should not have had standing to sue, because the potential injuries from […]