With talk of 4th Circuit Judge Luttig as a possible Rehnquist replacement to the Supreme Court (see other commentary here and profile of Luttig here), this opinion published yesterday, which upholds standing for environmental groups suing under the citizen suit provision of the Clean Water Act for unpermitted ongoing discharges, won't hurt Luttig's own standing before a Senate Judiciary Committee. The pig operation that was sued argued that its good-faith efforts should protect it from suit, but the Luttig opinion noted that violations of the Clean Water Act are treated as if under a strict liability standard, and thus the good-faith efforts made no difference.

UPDATE: Incidentally, if Stevens, Ginsburg, or another of the left-leaning justices thinks that they cannot last the entirity of Bush's term, it might be wise for them to announce their own retirement within a week or two of one of the conservative justices retiring. In such a scenario, it would seem harder for President Bush to replace both retirements with more rightward-leaning justices. The pressure for a compromise could be quite great in both the media and possibly public opinion if the retirements occurred at the same time as opposed to a year apart. But such an action might make for poor manners. I don't know the history of Supreme Court retirements in sufficient detail to comment one way or the other.