Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's too complicated for most people. Although it does pain me to see people using their energy so ineffectively. Protester: "6 unelected officials can't decide what I can do!" Supreme Court: "That's literally what we just said!" If Congress punts issues around indefinitely for its own political wheeling and dealing, it still cannot outsource a decision on those issues to other branches of the federal government. W…
> Protester: "6 unelected officials can't decide what I can do!" > Supreme Court: "That's literally what we just said!" Bullshit. The court was perfectly happy telling millions of people they had no right to an abortion. They’re just a bunch of partisan hacks
Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
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Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#202I guess it's time for congress to actually pass laws (first abortion, and now greenhouse gasses). Going to be a lot of anger about the results this court season, but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations.
The senate is affirmative action for rural areas. Why do we accept minority rule?
Delaware was the smallest of the 13 states with a population of 59K. That's 2.36% of the 2.5M total in 1776. There were 26 Senators so each one had about 7.7% voting power.
Today, South Dakota has a population of 905K out of 330M or 0.274% of the population. There are 100 Senators so each has about 2% voting power.
A Senator from South Dakota today represents 1/10 the population that a Senator from Delaware did in 1776. If influence scaled with the same distribution it did in 1776, a South Dakota Senator should only have about 0.77% voting power, but today they have 2%. Population distribution is more widely varied today which creates much more power for lower population states than when in the country was formed.
Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is impossible to keep partisanship out of the court, so it is a lot like a second version of Congress.
We managed for hundreds of years.
Let's not pretend that the current situation represents anything like "normal", and further, that we don't all recognize that bad-faith actions by the Republican party are responsible.
Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#204I guess it's time for congress to actually pass laws (first abortion, and now greenhouse gasses). Going to be a lot of anger about the results this court season, but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations.
> [...] but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations. I don't think that scales. When some group of people is large enough and has enough different things going on it has to delegate regulation making. There is just too much for the top level of management to be directly regulating everything. The larger the e…
"It is within the power of the EPA to regulate carbon emissions"
and leave the rest to the bureaucrats, and that would have been enough. I don't think that's an unreasonable ask.
Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#205Negative example: The BATF has a splendid history of literally doing nothing except putting it's critics behind bars, while solving 0 actual crime and preventing any sort of mass tradgedies.
Positive example: The FAA has done an incredible job making air-travel safer than car travel. I have a feeling that a lot of the higher-ups are former engineers and have been able to put politics and red/blue crap aside for a common mission.
Mixed example: The FCC has done a great job on spectrum allocation. They've done a shitty job when on broadband and content regulation, with it quickly becoming politicalized and more concern about red/blue.
Good example: The FDA has done a great job in regulating the industry for their namesake: food and drugs. We have unprecedented levels of safety in both despite not having a complete knowledge of how all drugs work (biology is just complex with a lot of hidden downstream after-effects).
Poor example: The NRC has pretty much just said "No" to fucking everything in nuclear. No progress has been made. We should have 3-5 reactors (on average) in every state. Instead we're still running 50 year old designs (not _necessarily bad_ but not great either) when we could have Generation III+ with passive failure modes.
That brings me to the EPA. I think they've done a lot of good: energy efficiency ultimately benefits the consumer in nearly every case. I have an air conditioner that kicks out a splendid 58degree air stream in the summer heat and extraordinarily low energy consumption levels. The EPA has successfully sued countless corporations and created superfund sights when they just dump industrial waste without a plan to handle it.
Unfortunately, as red/blue politics get involved in an agency, everyone loses. And the finger pointing begins. As such, the only "way out" may be to say delegate it to Congress. I'm not sure where we go from here.
Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quoted post unavailable.
> things that the majority doesn’t actually want Majority of square feet of land or majority of people?
So there is a democratic debate to be had about where in the middle the non extreme two sides could meet. (In Europe there is no debate about abortion and most countries allow it to 12 weeks).
Better to have a debate and both sides compromise than some court deciding on one of the most extreme views. The Supreme Court didn’t ban abortion, they did however allow it to 36 weeks for decades.
What they did do last week is say: hey guys, it’s a federal democracy, why don’t you fucking debate it and legislate it somehow where both sides can agree, as is normal with divisive issues in a democracy
Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#207What’s interesting about this ruling (if you listened to the oral arguments and read the ruling) is that it appears to undercut the ability for any executive agency to make a rule, under them claim that congress cannot delegate its powers. So the FAA can’t determine and then require that aircraft have transponders. Congress has to do this. If they continue down this path it will be chaos.
> it appears to undercut the ability for any executive agency to make a rule, under them claim that congress cannot delegate its powers.
this had been a goal for a long time, since even before goldwater... its called "deconstruction of the administrative state" (steve bannons phrase)Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds like GPT-3 trained on partisan talking points. If it's not, isn't it weird that you didn't notice that Democrats keep promising to codify Roe but never do? They had 40 years!! If they solved the problem, they wouldn't have that to campaign on and raise money with. Keep people enraged to get their vote. You're spot on about that, but it's how both parties operate. Never solve the problem so it'll be there…
Please do not equate the parties. It is incredibly naïve to see two parties that aren't perfect and somehow wave your arms and say they are equivalently bad. They are clearly different both in terms of their policy objectives and their willingness to stay within the realm of truth and science.