Alito's Wife Leased Land To Gas As He Fought EPA

Last year, Justice Samuel Alito’s wife, Martha Ann Bomgardner Alito, entered into an agreement with Citizen Energy III for revenue generated from oil and gas obtained from a plot of hardscrabble in Oklahoma she inherited from her late father, Daniel Boguslaw reported for The Intercept.

Photo Insert: Before the lease was activated, Martha Ann Alito’s financial disclosures labeled “mineral interests” valued between $100,001 and $250,000.

Before the lease was activated, Alito’s financial disclosures labeled “mineral interests” valued between $100,001 and $250,000. If extraction on the plot proves fruitful, Citizen Energy will pay Alito’s wife 3/16ths of all the money it makes from oil and gas.

In the past, Alito recused himself from cases that pose conflicts of interest with his investment portfolio.

Many of these recusals involved the inheritance of stocks after the death of Alito’s father-in-law, Bobby Gene Bomgardner.

“There need not be a specific case involving the drilling rights associated with a specific plot of land for Alito to understand what outcomes in environmental cases would buttress his family’s net wealth,” Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, told The Intercept.

In May, Alito penned a majority decision in Sackett v. EPA which radically scaled back the Clean Water Act, slashing its mandate by tens of millions of acres.

President Joe Biden said the ruling “puts our nation’s wetlands — and the rivers, streams, lakes and ponds connected to them — at risk of pollution and destruction, jeopardizing the sources of clean water that millions of American families, farmers and businesses rely on.”

The plaintiffs were backed by the American Gas Association, the American Petroleum Institute, and the Liquid Energy Pipeline Association.

Before this, Alito joined the court's conservative faction in attacking EPA powers under the Clean Air Act in West Virginia v. EPA. The 2022 ruling gutted the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.

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