Supreme Court Saves Big Bend From Unregulated Scenery

The Supreme Court rescued West Texas from the national-security threat of remaining visually magnificent Monday, allowing the Trump administration to resume border-wall construction through the Big Bend region while litigation continues. The unsigned 8–1 order paused a lower-court injunction that had questioned whether environmental protections could be waived for construction in one of the border’s lowest-traffic sectors. The justices determined that safeguards for wildlife, historic sites and Native American artifacts can be reconsidered once the desert has been upgraded into a federal work zone.

President Donald Trump praised the ruling as a decisive victory over geography. “For years, Big Bend has been completely open, with mountains going wherever they want and cactus pouring across the landscape totally unchecked,” Trump said. “We’re bringing order, beautiful order, with steel, roads, lights and tremendous concrete that frankly the scenery has been begging for.” Ranchers, conservationists, local officials and bipartisan opponents had argued that the project would waste public money and damage a remote landscape, apparently misunderstanding that undeveloped land is merely infrastructure that has not yet received a cost overrun.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, leaving open the dangerous possibility that park visitors might encounter an uninterrupted horizon. Administration officials said the barrier would protect Americans from the destabilizing impression that parts of the country can remain useful without surveillance towers, access roads and 30-foot reminders that Congress once appropriated money. With construction revived, Big Bend can finally join the modern federal wilderness system, where citizens reconnect with nature by viewing it through industrial infrastructure erected under waived environmental laws. The nation is now secure from scenery.

* None of the quotes in this article were spoken by an actual person. More info.