©2026 League of Conservation Voters
The Senate considered President Donald Trump’s nomination of Edward L. Artau to serve as a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Federal judges serve for life and the laws that protect our environment and democracy need judges who will uphold and enforce them. As a state court judge in 2025, Artau failed to disclose that he was seeking a Trump nomination nor recused himself while working on a defamation case that President Trump personally brought against members of the Pulitzer Prize Board. Instead, Artau ruled in Trump’s favor while citing Trump’s own rhetoric, and Trump subsequently nominated Artau for a federal judgeship. Before his initial judicial service, Artau litigated to allow pollutants to be discharged into environmentally sensitive areas, seeking to undermine both EPA authority and the public health of people living near the Everglades. Artau’s deeply questionable ethics and his anti-environment record demonstrate that he cannot be trusted to honorably enforce environmental protections and safeguard the people’s freedoms, as all judges must. On September 8, the Senate confirmed Artau to be a judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida by a vote of 50-43 (Senate roll call vote 504). NO IS THE PRO-ENVIRONMENT VOTE.
©2026 League of Conservation Voters