This is a guest opinion column

The U.S. Supreme Court appears hell-bent on dismantling what remains of federal environmental protections in this country.

By overturning the Chevron doctrine in its recent rulings — Loper Bright v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Commerce — the 6-3 conservative majority court has all but stripped the EPA of its authority to implement and regulate programs whose statutes are not expressly delineated by Congress, a task that many concede is beyond the capacity of the legislative branch.

The nut of the Chevron issue involves judicial interpretation of ambiguous statutes in the federal code. Prior to its overturning, the Chevron doctrine was cited by lower courts as a way to defer to agency expertise on matters where ambiguous statutes — and the ways in which they are implemented and sometimes regulated — are unclear and beyond the ken of the judiciary. Many of these statutes are made purposefully ambiguous, due to the highly complex and ever-shifting nature of agency operations (just think Medicare) that move at warp speed and often require a swift pivot.

In his opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote “the agencies have no special competence.” Under this logic, the expertise of a hydrologist at the EPA carries no significance from a legal standpoint, say, when it comes to the interpretation of an unclear statute under the Clean Water Act. Say what, John?

Last year the Supreme Court stripped most of the nation’s wetlands of protection when it redefined WOTUS (“waters of the United States”) in Sackett v. EPA, arguing that the filling of wetlands requires no permit unless those wetlands are adjacent to a free-flowing waterbody (most aren’t). That decision greatly imperiled the waters of Coastal Alabama. Baldwin County is the seventh-fastest growing county in the U.S., and development continues apace. We’re already seeing an increased loss of wetlands as a result. That leads to increased runoff, which means there is far more mud and raw industrial poison flowing into our waters.

For a democracy to even approximate competence, the principles of federalism must be somewhat intact. Here in Alabama, that often feels like a pipe dream. Many of Alabama’s officials act like they are the second coming of George Wallace, constantly braying the state motto “We Dare Defend Our Rights.” Yet some of these officials, who work at state agencies like the Public Service Commission and the Environmental Management Commission, are little more than shills, forever doing the bidding of corporate behemoths like Alabama Power. Exactly whose rights are they defending?

“[The} overreach [that] is being done by our big brother, EPA …. I appreciate the hard work defending the sovereignty of our great state from the environmental perspective,” Frank McFadden, chair of the Environmental Management Commission, told ADEM director Lance LeFleur in June, after LeFleur had spoken about the EPA’s denial of the state’s coal-ash program at an agency meeting.

For decades, the state of Alabama has been a national leader in chemical production. In Coastal Alabama alone, there are 26 chemical plants located along Highway 43 from McIntosh to Mobile. This stretch of highway is a verifiable cancer cluster and human-health disaster; a long-running generational tragedy that was reported in blood-curdling detail in a recent investigative piece by Al-Jazeera.

The great irony of all this is that many of the heavy polluters in the state are transnational or foreign corporations, owned by institutional investors. Add to that the fact that many of the state’s polluters do not live here. According to the USDA, 1.8 million acres of Alabama land is owned by foreign countries, the fourth highest in the nation behind Texas, Maine, and Colorado. So much for state sovereignty.

The Hippocratic oath is a sacred vow taken by medical professionals which commands them to “Do no harm.” In a perfect world, our government would operate as such. In light of the recent Supreme Court rulings, it’s more crucial than ever that the citizens of the state, as well as our state and local officials, stand up and demand accountability for those that are poisoning our waters and causing harm to our friends and loved ones. If public officials do stand up and demand accountability, they’ll finally be defending the state and its people, which is their sworn duty.

Caine O’Rear is Mobile Baykeeper’s communications director