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Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

bbc.com

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Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#231

Post by xpe »

deelowe wrote: post #122
scifibestfi wrote: post #83

Earlier 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…

Yep. Wedge issues. I'm glad the SC is trying to force congress to do its job. If only someone would do something about executive orders, we may make some real progress.

You sound very naive.

There is a long history and philosophy around the proper roles and relationships of a legislature and court such as SCOTUS. The current Court could claim to make decisions upon a strict originalist philosophy of jurisprudence. Maybe they think they do, and maybe they really do. But...

Take an open-eyed look at history. Look at the process by which the justices are selected. This shows a different ultimate motivator: conservatives have been working for decades to pick justices whose claimed philosophies align with the conservative agenda.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#232

Post by zionic »

davidw wrote: post #163
DantesKite wrote: post #50

I feel like a lot of people here would do well to try and understand the role of the Supreme Court, instead of treating it like a second version of Congress.

I'm old enough to remember when I could grudgingly accept that there was some wisdom in decisions I disagreed with, even if perhaps not enough to sway me. But I could see something argued intelligently. This is just nakedly partisan stuff going on. I think viewing it through that lens - "we're going to do what we want because it fits our politics" - makes the most sense.

> This is just nakedly partisan stuff going on.

The problem is much of the left’s gains over the last few decades have been based on shaky legal/constitutional ground. Even leftist judges like Ginsberg admitted that, and they were counting on the mistakes being in place for too long to correct (precedent).

Now all that technical debt is coming back to kick our ass.

This isn’t the end of the world though, Congress can fix everything that’s happened in the last few weeks via proper laws.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#233

Post by the_doctah »

seoaeu wrote: post #161
yieldcrv wrote: post #125

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

>The court was perfectly happy telling millions of people they had no right to an abortion.

This is not what happened at all. They ruled against the federal government's ability to regulate it.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#234

Post by gnicholas »

gumby wrote: post #24

What’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.

I read this differently (and am a former lawyer who worked on administrative law). This is about the "major questions doctrine", which involves a subset of administrative actions. It's not about whether administrative agencies can do anything whatsoever.

> Under this body of law, known as the major questions doctrine, given both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent, the agency must point to “clear congressional authorization” for the authority it claims.

The reasoning for this is that:

> We presume that “Congress intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#236

Post by wing-_-nuts »

ejb999 wrote: post #172
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #45

Great, so now we're reliant on congress to get something done. The same congress that's sat on its hands for the past 30 years and has been shown to be completely incapable of addressing the issue. This is a massive blow to the US being able to reach emissions targets. Every day we're one step closer to the 'business as usual' path that leaves the world 3-4c hotter. That's a catastrophic scenario.

>>This is a massive blow to the US being able to reach emissions targets. Whose targets though? 'Shouldn't we the people' have a say? i.e. shouldn't congress actually hold the hearings, digest the info and go on the record voting for or against important items? We don't let the IRS set tax rates, we should not let unelected bureaucrats decide what the environmental goals are - elect people you think represent your pr…

Again, congress has had 30 YEARS to do something. They've done nothing. I'm long past the point of assuming ignorance and incompetence, much of congress is clearly acting in bad faith on this issue because they are beholden to the fossil fuel companies.

Want 'We the People' to have a say in whether or not the EPA should regulate CO2? Put it to a national referendum. Congress has shown repeatedly that it's more than happy to watch the world burn if it means their superpacs are stuffed with lobbyist funds.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#237

Post by PuppyTailWags »

yieldcrv wrote: post #217
peter422 wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then it’s all very self-contradictory. How are people supposed to have faith in the court when it makes a decision, reaffirms it many times over nearly 50 years, then just changes its mind on a dime? The judicial branch has a responsibility to itself for self-consistent reasoning, which it has completely abandoned this term. The court is not supposed to change dramatically with every election, that’s what the leg…

It is rare for the Supreme Court to act as a second Congress. When it has, those are the cases that most likely get overruled. Additionally, old cases with poor and antiquated assumptions get overturned (not relevant here, just showing a consistency in what is and can be expected to be reviewed.) Opposing sides of that court have said the exact same thing about Roe v Wade. Ruth Bader Ginsberg even said "this is prett…

Ruth Bader Ginsberg is most certainly not an extreme comparable to Alito, lol.

The Supreme Court has acted as a second Congress for a wide variety of things. This is how miranda rights happened. This is how contraception was legalized. This is how homosexuality was legalized. This is how race integration was legalized. ETC.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#238

Post by vkou »

pigtailgirl wrote: post #89
morninglight wrote: post #5

Donald Trump lives, and his legacy will be controlling your life for many years.

-- from an outside perspective it feels like declined American manufacturing / skilled labour simply continuing it's reflection into the American society? - this started long before trump? -- bail out the banks > 1% hate > occupy wall st etc > "coastal elite" > state pride > trump etc > appetite in the country for the court to address federal vs state precedent? Could be wrong, just how it looks from the outside --

There's more to it. The American right has been working a multi-decade long plan to pack the supreme court with... Well, people like this. And now the chickens are coming home to roost.

They'd have done this regardless of the state of industrialization or 1% hate. It's an alliance between religious fundamentalism, and the business community, and what they want has stayed constant despite the short term ebbs and flows of politics.

Also, please don't buy into the states rights nonsense. This group only believes in states rights when they don't control the federal government.

It's really best to just not listen to what it says, and instead look at what it does.

Re: Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

#240

Post by colincooke »

For those looking to get an objective understanding of this decision I found this article useful[0]. The gist of it is that this is more about preventing future rules to be put in place rather than changing anything that the EPA is actively enforcing. Essentially the EPA cannot force the shut-down of coal fired power plants (or other high emission energy sources) using the Clean Air Act.

As someone very pro renewable energy obviously I would prefer a different outcome, but the good news is that these types of power sources are just plain uneconomical these days, so their shutdown is going to happen anyways. Perhaps renewables won't have as many regulatory assists as we hoped, but the good news is that they can stand on their own, and the clean power industry keeps building better systems then capitalism will take care of the transition for us.

[0] https://reason.com/volokh/2022/06/30/supreme-court-rejects-b...

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