"In early 2005, an environmental lawsuit of tremendous importance was barreling toward oral arguments in America's second-highest court.

The case would determine whether EPA could regulate heat-trapping gases that cause climate change. A career attorney at the Justice Department who had been working the case for years was slated to argue it.

It would be a career-making hearing in the legal world. But at nearly the last minute, word came down from the highest levels of the Justice Department: A political appointee would argue Massachusetts v. EPA at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit instead.

It was Jeffrey Bossert Clark."

Pamela King and Jeremy P. Jacobs report for E&E News January 26, 2021. [2]