Your Jan. 12 editorial urges confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito on the basis of his experience and intelligence. But far too much hangs in the balance to entrust a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court to someone without considering his record. And when it comes to the environment, Alito’s record indicates that he poses a clear threat to the protections that Americans depend on.

As a Third Circuit judge, Alito prevented victims of pollution from enforcing the Clean Water Act against a polluter who had admitted 150 violations of the law. He didn’t back away from this decision under questioning at his hearing. Nor would he say whether he agreed with a later Supreme Court case, Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw, which rejected the very legal reasoning he’d used to deny citizens access to court.

If confirmed, Alito could vote to shut courthouse doors to ordinary Americans who have been harmed by air and water pollution. His record also sends a troubling signal about how he will vote in two upcoming cases that could remove the vast majority of our nation’s waterways from protection under the Clean Water Act.

The air we breathe and the water we drink are simply too important to entrust to Judge Alito. Sens. Collins and Snowe should reject his confirmation.

Michael Herz

Trustee, Maine Rivers

Sheepscot Valley Conservation Association

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