Environmentalists are up in arms over President Bush’s nomination of William Myers III to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Based in San Francisco, the famously liberal court has long been a friend to the environment. But not so Myers, the top lawyer in the Interior Department and a longstanding supporter of ranchers, the livestock industry, and other for-profit sectors that use public lands. His supporters say he would bring balance to a court they claim is out of step with the interests of many of the areas it covers (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, the U.S. Territory of Guam, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Island). “He’d be terrific and lord knows they need him. That is the goofiest court in America,” said former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson (R), for whom Myers was once an aide. But Simpson acknowledged that enviros would disagree: “He’ll never satisfy the tree huggers. They’d love to eat him alive.”
