From the editorial page of Monday's Boston Globe, "A hostile judge":

When the White House is in the clutches of the oil, coal, mining, and timber companies, as it is now, the best defenders of laws to protect the environment are often federal judges. Recently they have ruled against the Bush administration on issues ranging from power plant emissions to snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park.

That's why it is so worrisome that President Bush has nominated a former lobbyist for the mining and cattle industries for a lifetime appointment on the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California, which rules on many land use cases in the West. If the Senate confirms the nominee, William G. Myers, the judicial check on this administration's unbalanced policies will be weakened.

Myers's most recent job was a two-year stint as the top lawyer in Bush's Interior Department. There he regularly did favors for the cattlemen and mining company owners, acting against the interests of tribes and protectors of public lands.

The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that Myers had supported transferring public land to a mining company without bothering to check with the local office of the Bureau of Land Management, which opposed the giveaway. In reversing an opinion of the Interior Department under President Clinton that a proposed gold mine would pollute the environment and violate a sacred tribal site, Myers said he never consulted with tribal officials, though they asked for a meeting.

Myers's judicial temperament is as flawed as his sensitivity to conflict of interest. He has compared federal management of public lands to "the tyrannical actions of King George in levying taxes" on the Colonies without their representation. He considers both the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act's wetlands protections to be examples of "regulatory excesses" and has argued that private property rights are as fundamental as free speech rights. This is a view, repeatedly rejected by the US Supreme Court, that would undercut a wide spectrum of zoning and environmental laws.

Quite aside from his extreme views, Myers has a scant record of qualification for the appeals court. Myers has never been a judge at any level, has never been a law professor, and has never even participated in a jury trial. Not a single member of the American Bar Association's standing committee on the federal judiciary rated him as "well qualified." More than one-third of the 15 members rated him as "not qualified."