This is John Batchel. Colleague Michael Toth of the Civitas Institute brings us up to date on a court case in federal court and

bargained before the Supreme Court about the plaintiff's bar wanting to exact penalties from oil and gas companies for damage to the coastline of Louisiana during the Second World War.

That's right.

The aviation gas especially, but all the gasoline was critical to the war effort.

That was the arsenal of democracy.

And here Michael explains how that claim seems to be a bridge too far, several bridges too far for the justices, and solicits a very

clever rebuke from the attorney for the defendant's, Paul Clement. Here's Michael to explain.

Yeah, I mean, and I would go even one step further. I mean, I think sometimes the questions that the

justices don't ask are as revealing as, you know, as the questions that they are asking. So,

you know, starting with kind of what wasn't really pressed on, you know, none of the justices

seem particularly inclined to deconstruct wartime supply chains of the United States of America

during a two-front war in the 1940s. Okay, so none of the justices, I think for obvious reasons,

were interested in really trying to parse out, you know, where exactly this increase in oil

production was going. I mean, the reality is,

and I think Justice Kavanaugh pointed this out very well, there was a brief from two former

chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff pointing out exactly how important a weapon oil and gas was

to the war effort. There was one moment in the hearing where the attorney was representing

Louisiana said, well, hey, you know, 70% of the oil production during the war went to civilian

uses. And then Paul Clement, who we were talking about before the break, just slammed the door

right shut and said, yeah, civilian uses meant the home front. It meant munitions factories.