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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

#431

Post by gsibble »

andrekandre wrote: post #355
hunglee2 wrote: post #210

owning the supreme court was the republicans trump card, the Presidency is only a pit stop toward the true goal. Got it for a life time now don't they? Got to hand it to them, smart long term planning

there are a lot of lesson so be had... just a few... - long term planning of the gop vs short term tactics of dems - justices staying on too long until it was too late - bad (tone-deaf) campaigning for prez lost 3 seats on the sc - ignoring rural and working-class (used to be the dems bread and butter) dissolved their base of support (clinton and the "new" dems) - relying on the sc for too many rulings... next we loo…

Yeah, RBG really fucked the Dems by not retiring with Obama in office.

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

#432

Post by cryptonector »

criddell wrote: post #226
spacemanmatt wrote: post #4

Quoted post unavailable.

Fix the SCOTUS. I like the proposal to have term limits (long ones, maybe 20 years) and increase the number of justices so that every four years two of them are replaced by the sitting president.

The Constitution says "for life". Fixing that will require an amendment.

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

#434

Post by tablespoon »

zionic wrote: post #405
Spivak wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody in the comments is saying that the Supreme Court is wrong in the sense that the logic doesn’t follow. Of course it’s nuanced and up to interpretation, that’s why most decisions are split — and usually split on “conservative (do what I say) and liberal (do what I mean). The reason people are mad is because the court is relitigating long settled cases which breaks the main principle of the court which is don’t b…

>The reason people are mad is because the court is relitigating long settled cases which breaks the main principle of the court A bad decision is a bad decision no matter how long it's been in effect. If anything, following "precedent" is what got us into this mess in the first place. We could have ripped the bandaid off decades ago on abortion and fixed it then. Now it's going to be much more messy.

> A bad decision is a bad decision no matter how long it's been in effect. If anything, following "precedent" is what got us into this mess in the first place. We could have ripped the bandaid off decades ago on abortion and fixed it then. Now it's going to be much more messy.

IMHO, what actually got us in this mess was the Supreme Court putting itself into a situation where it's regularly making momentous political decisions, rather that resolving finer points of law, resolving little corner cases, etc. It might be expedient to use its power to set social and economic policy, but that doesn't mean it's right.

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

#435

Post by throw10920 »

voisin wrote: post #182
elmerfud wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree it will be chaos. Congress has for far too long abdicated what it is supposed to be directly responsible for to unelected bureaucrats that exist in agencies that are overseen by the executive branch of government. Congress is now free to focused on creating chaos between the people that elect them. When is the last time you've seen anyone from Congress campaign on any substantive issue? I've not seen it…

Many of those unelected bureaucrats are experts in their fields due to their ability to focus for entire careers.

Is Congress not capable of listening to those experts and then publicly debating which of their suggestions to implement?

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

#436

Post by shrimpx »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #303
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.

Recent history shows us many examples of SCOTUS saying "the Constitution doesn't let you do this", and people being up in arms crying "but the thing you just struck down is necessary". Folks: it's not within the Court's authority to decide what is a good idea and what is a bad idea. Their sole job is to interpret laws through the lens of the Constitution. The justices may well agree with your wishes of what Congress…

That works in principle but not in practice. The core issue in roe v wade was tossing out precedent while failing to show reasoning why tossing out precedent should be ok. So now the court seems to be chaotic. Whatever the makeup of the court, they may toss out precedent that doesn’t match the current majority’s interpretation of the constitution (of which there are many). Then suppose the scotus becomes a liberal majority. Then they may reinstate all the tossed out precedents. That’s just chaos, with the main focus becoming which party chooses justices, not any reasonable continuity and coherence of constitutional law.

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

#437

Post by matthewdgreen »

rayiner wrote: post #306

Headlines about Supreme Court cases are almost uniformly misleading, because they suggest the Court is making decisions on policy issues rather than legal issues. The very first words of the opinion, on p. 2, make clear that the legal issue before the Court is very different: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf The Clean Air Act does not purport to give the EPA blanket regulatory authority ov…

This case could have been decided either way. The result clearly depends on the makeup of the Court and the justices' personal inclinations. As evidence: a very similar question was decided by the Court in 2009, with a completely different result [1].

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_v._Environmental_Prote...

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

#438

Post by vuciv1 »

Of course, this will come off as reactionary, but I gotta say it.

I don’t understand the logic behind the Supreme Court. How can such a tiny group of people, until the day they die, that weren’t appointed by the people, make decisions that affect all of human society?

Seems so anti-democratic to me.

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

#439

Post by the_gastropod »

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…

> If something like that can't make it through congress then it isn't democratic

Ah, yes. The institution where 41 Senators, representing a mere 22% of the US population can block legislation is the zenith of democracy. Especially when considering the legislation we're talking about is as a response to a court case ruled by 6 judges, 5 of which were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, approved by senators representing fewer citizens than the senators who voted against their approval. Real nice system of democracy.

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

#440

Post by gsibble »

thepasswordis wrote: post #314

Good. I have to say that, as an anti-authoritarian, conservative advocate of individual liberty, this last week has been extremely inspiring. To those who are confused about how the system in the US works: the court has basically decreased their own power with some of these decisions. That’s the type of thing that should give everybody, regardless of affiliation, hope about the future.

It is inspiring.
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