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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

#601

Post by vintermann »

kbuchanan wrote: post #502
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…

This is a great example of how on an individual level commentators want to bend democratic processes to achieve their own goals, but, without fail, they get caught in a tangle of contradictions. What is the Supreme Court's mandate? To stop climate change? To feel out the majority's opinion and make a legal path for it? This is why democracy is so hard: it consistently yields outcomes that are disappointing to a large…

Democracy? Where did democracy ever enter into the picture here?

The Supreme Court is different from the other branch of government heads, in that they decide for themselves what their mandate is, and you don't have any recourse ... unless you're in charge of one of the other branches, and are willing to cause a constitutional crisis by ignoring them or replacing them.

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

#602

Post by tablespoon »

Sporktacular wrote: post #524
tablespoon wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is to limit the administrative state and move power to congress (as you said), because federal rule making is relatively open, and the administration has experts. > If it moves to congress, they'll just take the legislation lobbyists hand them and pass it, because they don't have the expertise to actually write technical regulations. Huh? Remember Ajit Pai? It hasn't been that long. It's profoundly anti-d…

Quoted post unavailable.

> Biden is elected. He appoints experts. Experts craft regulations. When regulations screw up, Biden gets elected out. Experts get kicked out.

So just elect a king, then? There's a pretty strict division of powers in the US, and for good reason. Congress just needs to do its job and pass some legislation.

> Jesus, can you put aside the taking points and just think for yourself? Obviously no one is unaccountable. This is not some tin pot dictatorship like Fox is telling you to pretend it is.

I can tell you I am thinking for myself, at least as much as you probably are. Making an accusation like you have is also, frankly, against the site guidelines and not conductive to discussion.

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

#603

Post by thrown321 »

throw10920 wrote: post #435
voisin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Congress writes laws vague enough for the experts to implement the policy. It's always been this way. It will be total chaos if Congress has to explicate the specific.

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

#604

Post by brewdad »

throw10920 wrote: post #435
voisin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Have you met our Congress?

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

#605

Post by jdasdf »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #345
Covzire wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 EP…

>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.

It is not congresses job to enforce the law by writing new laws.

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

#606

Post by hnrodey »

VoidWhisperer wrote: post #120
hnrodey wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Supreme Court is focused on laws, not outcomes - as it should be.

How would you apply this to the Roe v Wade decision overturn? I'm not saying it is infeasible to apply it to that but I am curious to see the argument that that was explicitly focused on laws and not outcomes (especially given some of the language used by some of the justices to refer to abortion)

I'm a software developer, not a legal scholar. Anything I said that could be considered intelligent regarding analysis of SCOTUS opinions would be nothing more than regurgitation I've heard from another source in the media.

As such, I will decline to offer anything beyond what I've already said.

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

#607

Post by politician »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #404
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…

So the EPA is kneecapped since they have to go through the most ineffective and hyper partisan congress since the founding of the country.

And yet, fixing that problem -- the problem of the ineffectiveness and hyper-partisanship of Congress -- would have so many positive effects for all of our lives regardless of our ideological perspectives that it should be our number one priority as the electorate.

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

#608

Post by throwaway0a5e »

jimkleiber wrote: post #387
zionic wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree. So therefore I want us to fix the gridlock in the legislative branch so they can actually legislate. I think the members of Congress have mostly been captured by the political parties, almost automatically voting with their party line, representing their party more than their actual constituencies. If someone represents my state of Michigan, I believe they don't just represent the Democrats or Republicans wh…

They vote for the money.

The elimination of earmarks has made politicians more dependent on the party and good grace of industry for their elections so they have to tow the party line harder and cater to the lobby more whereas back in the day people could vote against their party if they were bringing home something else to make it worthwhile.

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

#609

Post by chronometry888 »

nostromo wrote: post #309

The theme this session has been the court pushing lots of decisions back to congress, away from the executive, and away from the court itself. For all the consternation, these decisions are very mutable. Congress just needs to pass laws.

We don't have time for that. By the time a congress is elected that is willing to make laws that curb emissions, it will be too late. So much damage will already have been done.

Pushing responsibility to literally save the world onto a broken legislative body is idiotic.

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

#610

Post by evanpw »

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…

> Headlines about Supreme Court cases are almost uniformly misleading, because they suggest the Court is making decisions on policy issues rather than legal issues.

I agree with this completely, but it doesn't help when justices begin their opinion / concurrence / dissent with a long policy discussion before talking about the legal questions. That's been the case in several of the recent decisions.

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