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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

#341

Post by Sporktacular »

zionic wrote: post #232
davidw wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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

Dream on. You're trolling right?

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

#342

Post by gsibble »

zionic wrote: post #317
nooyurrsdey wrote: post #282

Emphasis mine: > The case against the EPA was brought by West Virginia on behalf of 18 other mostly Republican-led states and some of the nation's largest coal companies. > > They were challenging whether the agency has the power to regulate planet-warming emissions for state-wide power sectors or just individual power plants. > > These 19 states were worried their power sectors would be regulated and they would be f…

Well the fix here is for Congress to pass a specific law empowering the EPA with explicit authority. If something like that can't make it through congress then it isn't democratic, and the task then becomes one of convincing the other side. I've the had the anti-coal conversation with plenty of conservatives and they were all open to my point of view. Ultimately this court's decision is a win for democracy, even if i…

Agreed. This isn't about climate change, it's about proper procedure as the Constitution sets it up. The EPA went past its mandated purposes as set up by law. Congress needs to pass a new law to give it this power. If it can't, that's their problem. This was a good decision as far too much power has been given to the administrative state to basically make up laws.

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

#343

Post by peter422 »

scottLobster wrote: post #287
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 doesn't change dramatically with EVERY election, it just changed dramatically with the last one due to a lot of judges retiring/dying off at once. Just a generational phenomenon. SCOTUS leaned liberal (in the sense that liberal justices tend to believe in larger-scope interpretations of Constitution) for a long time, now for the first time in a while they're leaning conservative (the Constitution says what it says…

It doesn’t matter what camp you fall into, or if you think the courts decisions in the past were “wrong” (though obviously there is no absolute right or wrong interpreting how a 250 year old document interfaces with modern society).

The court as an institution has a responsibility to maintain some sort of consistency if it wants any legitimacy.

How can people make decisions about where and how to live if their fundamental rights are changing year to year (and most recently being taken away)?

You are also not aligned with the current public opinion. The court is at its lowest approval rating ever, and that is before overturning Roe. If the court cannot maintain it’s appearance of legitimacy then it essentially fails as an institution. The court could have chosen to move more slowly, with more restraint, but it didn’t.

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

#344

Post by Goronmon »

PathOfEclipse wrote: post #301
40acres wrote: post #168

I really don't understand the decision. In my mental model the executive branch exists to implement the laws that Congress passes, Congress deliberately leaves leeway in laws to give the executive branch flexibility, this flexibility has been previously affirmed by the court decision Chevron v. NRDC. This decision seems to give more power to Congress but on net I think it makes the laws Congress passes weaker because…

Quoted post unavailable.

The decision looks simple and correct to me, even with only reading from the very left biased BBC article.

Despite your very right biased comment, I don't buy the idea that congress needs to write legislation down to specific policy details that might come up with every minute aspect of what is intending to be legislated. I don't think elected politicians are capable of being knowledgeable enough to give specific guidance on the broad range of issues necessary to govern the entire country.

I mean, do you really want a US senator voting on what level of chemicals are allowed to be present in drinking water? Is that the goal here?

Right now, the corporate legacy media are working hard to paint the false narrative that the current conservative justices are extreme partisan hacks. Don't fall for their deceptions. Do your own research.

And if I do my own research and decide that the current conservative justices are extreme partisan hacks?

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

#345

Post by matthewdgreen »

Covzire wrote: post #187
bastardoperator wrote: post #38

I don't ever want to hear the term "activist judges" or "legislating from the bench" from a conservative ever again. And, Barrett couldn't even cite the first amendment...

In this case, as I understand it, the EPA was declaring they had authority to enforce some new rules by interpreting where congress wrote "may" as "must". Whether you agree with the EPA's motives or not, it should concern everyone that un-elected bureaucrats have been increasingly inventing or hallucinating the language of their mandates to turn them into whatever they wanted, whenever it suits them, and this was a m…

>In this case, as I understand it, the EPA was declaring they had authority to enforce some new rules by interpreting where congress wrote "may" as "must".

Congress didn't pass a law and disappear. If Congress felt that the EPA was misinterpreting the language of the Clean Air Act it could have passed a law limiting the agency's powers. The fact that it did not do so is the strongest rebuttal to the claim that the EPA was operating outside its mandate.

This decision is an announcement by the Court that Congress can no longer be trusted to govern the agencies it oversees.

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

#347

Post by AlotOfReading »

cryptonector wrote: post #285
AlotOfReading wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you write an entire opinion about delegation without mentioning Chevron ? As the dissent points out, that delegation is inherently required to do the EPA's job and the court has previously accepted their technical and policy expertise in this area.

You would think they would have reversed Chevron, or distinguished it. But note, I've not read this decision yet, and I'm taking your word for their not mentioning Chevron.

Maybe I missed something between reading and ctrl-f, but it's only mentioned in the dissent as far as I can tell.

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

#349

Post by jefurii »

lbotos wrote: post #259
coldcode wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Congress won't act, the Executive isn't permitted to do much even with what they were given by Congress, and the People are powerless to do anything unless 100% of them vote, which never happens, and even then may be overruled in many places. No future for any of us I guess.

> People are powerless to do anything unless 100% of them vote I'm not following this logic? Why do we need 100% of people to vote? I assume you mean to "oust ineffective elected officials" but I suspect that there are many people that don't vote because they are "happy" and don't feel at risk of their desired official being outed. But again, I might be off base. Hoping you can clarify more of what you meant.

Most of the public cares about climate change and wants the government to do something. The overwhelming majority of the public supports abortion in some form or other. If they actually voted maybe we could change things, but lots of people just don't vote.

Having participated in several cycles of political organizing, the actual ground game is Get Out The Vote (GOTV): not trying to get people to change their minds, but getting people to just get off their asses.

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