Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court limits EPA’s power to cut emissions

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

671–680 of 1001 posts

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

#671

Post by syrrim »

xyzzyz wrote: post #623
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…

The headlines aren’t entirely wrong. If you look at the conservative majority opinions, you’ll find that indeed, it’s about the relevant legal issues, ie. what the law actually says. On the other hand, if you read liberal dissents, they’re mostly about what they think appropriate policy should be. In this particular case, the majority opinion starts off by quoting the relevant statute and analyzing its meaning, where…

If congress disagreed with this interpretation, they could pass a law explicitly ruling it out. The power of the supreme court in this regard relies on the fact that congress has great difficulty passing any law at all, and thus whatever interpretation given by the supreme court is likely to persist.

>If you look at the conservative majority opinions, you’ll find that indeed, it’s about the relevant legal issues, ie. what the law actually says.

The dissertation focuses on that. The actual reasoning might be based on something else. The court is strongly interested in projecting an image of being neutral, and of only going off of the wording of laws, rather than involving their own biases. Thus, the majority opinion should be read as an attempt to assign such a motive to their decision, whereas the dissenting opinions attempt to assign the opposite motive. That is, they attempt to suggest that the majority ruled this way because they are insufficiently worried about climate change.

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

#672

Post by Siddarth1977 »

briffle wrote: post #157
cloutchaser wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I understand your point, but at the same time, I don't want the same "it is like a series of tubes" guys mandating some airplane technology pushed by the highest campaign contribution either.

I have a degree in computer science and a couple decades of experience with software development for, and deployment on, the internet.

I think the metaphor of comparing internet bandwidth to pipes/tubes carrying water is perfectly apt. It seems like a very simple, direct and effective way to describe issues of bandwidth, connectivity, congestion and overall infrastructure.

I've never quite understood why we all pretended like that was a bad analogy. I guess just because it came out of the mouth of an old, white Republican.

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

#673

Post by burkaman »

elmerfud wrote: post #85
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 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…

> 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.

Yes, that's what the executive branch is for. That's how our government and basically every government in the history of the world has worked.

> When is the last time you've seen anyone from Congress campaign on any substantive issue?

Literally every campaign in my life that I've had any exposure to. Campaigning on real issues is not hard, the problem is getting into Congress and then being unwilling or unable to follow through.

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

#674

Post by dsr_ »

alex_sf wrote: post #595
dsr_ wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've almost got it, but you need to go one step further. Congress isn't democratic. Congress is overly concentrated. To begin with, the Senate is absurdly anti-democratic. The 710K residents of Washington, DC don't get a vote there at all. The 600K residents of Wyoming get the same 2 votes as Vermont (620K) and California (39 million). Anything that says that Texas and West Virginia are equal to each other in some…

> Anything that says that Texas and West Virginia are equal to each other in some mystical sense of having equal weight in decisions that affect the whole country is an ideology not compatible with democracy. It's completely compatible with democracy, and makes perfect sense under federalism. The federal government was not meant to have the expansive powers it does; the problem is that via things like the commerce cl…

If you want to argue "meant to", you must reference that to a time when the USA was about 17 states, all of roughly equal power, economy and population. 1803, just before the Louisiana Purchase. There were 12 Constitutional amendments.

"supposed to" is in the same light. The system that worked pretty well for about 5 million people in the pre-industrial age (and assumed that everyone not male, white, and a land-owner was distinctly second-class) does not work so well 200 years later in a world power of 330 million people.

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

#675

Post by refurb »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #646
lolinder wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't make OP's point less true: the headlines surrounding this decision are misleading. This is not judicial overreach, it's an application of a different theory of judicial review than we've become accustomed to, and it's not necessarily a bad one. If we don't like it when the police creatively interpret laws to target minorities, can we allow the EPA the authority to creatively interpret laws to target foss…

A court that is unconstrained by precedent can arrive at any policy outcome it wants: simply tailor a "novel" legal theory that gives you the desired result, then ignore past decisions that use different theories. Past Courts have worked extremely hard to avoid this: they viewed it as fatal to the legitimacy of the Court. They were right.

But that’s exactly what the Roe v Wade decision was - decide what policy you want, then have the court come up with an argument as to why that right exists.

It’s not supposed to work that way. The legislature makes laws, the court interprets under the framework of the Constitution.

Precedent is important, but it’s not supposed to create law out of thin air. It’s supposed to be based on a firm set of decisions that flow from the Constitution and law.

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

#676

Post by tialaramex »

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.

> Congress just needs to pass laws.

For so long as the American people respect the US Supreme Court, their laws can be nullified on the say-so of this Court and are thus worthless. That's the underlying point of this whole suite of rulings.

Congress can write laws, the Court can decide they don't mean what you thought they mean, and, apparently, you will cheerfully conclude that the Court is wise and you're foolish, perhaps only realising the danger when it is too late.

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

#677

Post by [deleted] »

jibe wrote: post #149
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.

That is silly hyperbolic overreaction. The court literally upheld the EPA regulating greenhouse gasses at the point of creation. It upheld the specific regulations how coal was burned. All it said was the EPA wasn't empowered to move into grid management schemes. If congress wants to grant them that power, it can.

[deleted]

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

#678

Post by AnimalMuppet »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #141
biggieshellz wrote: post #6

Major questions doctrine. They ruled that the current law does not empower EPA to require producers to shift generation to different methods (e.g. natural gas, renewables), and that if Congress had meant for the law to do that, they would have written it explicitly. Congress can still pass a law empowering EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

> Congress can still pass a law empowering EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Congress gave the EPA broad discretion that it could have revoked -- using your argument -- at any moment. This issue has been bouncing around for over a decade, and Congress has systematically declined to do so.

Well, see, that's exactly the question. How broad was the authority that Congress gave them?

"Congress gave them broad authority" != "they have authority over everything they can in any way claim relates (however loosely) to their mandate".

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

#679

Post by philwelch »

JeremyNT wrote: post #651
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. This is the naive version of how SCOTUS works that they teach us in elementary school. History has shown that the Supreme Court is a political body with its own political agenda. The doctrine and precedent cited is used as a justification for whatever pol…

The majority of justices on the current Supreme Court have been doing a good job of sticking to the law rather than attempting to enact policy. What you’re describing is a good criticism of the mid-20th century Supreme Court, but the current Court has done a good job of rolling back those excesses.

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

#680

Post by themaninthedark »

mullingitover wrote: post #549
InTheArena wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government works off of law, not merely intentions. Intentions can change. Laws are documented. otherwise what’s the keep of random police officer from deciding that they have the ability to regulate the applications on my phone? After all, they’re just keeping me safe.

Legislation often deliberately leaves interpretation of statutes to the agencies implementing the laws. The legislation can just say "The parks department shall keep the park safe and well-maintained," without specifying what 'safe' means, or how often they collect the trash.

Under that law, I could clear cut the forest, turn it into a meadow and put up a fence around it to prevent people from getting in.
Post reply on HN