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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

#921

Post by [deleted] »

Sakos wrote: post #895
philosopher1234 wrote: post #699

Every surpreme court article makes me hate this community a bit more. There is far too much obsessing over "their logic is consistent" and far too much intentional ignorance of the fact that they chose which logic to bring to bear on which issues, and that there are many other possible ways to apply consistent logic. Their logic can be consistent and they can still be partisans, looking to implement a specific agenda…

I feel like people don't actually realize what the consequences of this will really be. https://today.law.harvard.edu/scotus-preview-west-virginia-v... > “Supporters of the major questions doctrine would characterize this as taking power away from agencies and giving it to Congress, because they would say Congress is democratically accountable, and therefore should be making the major policy decisions,” says Goho. “C…

[deleted]

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

#922

Post by jaywalk »

30944836 wrote: post #913
lolinder wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support this ruling not because I think that the EPA shouldn't have the authority to cap emissions, but because I agree with the Court that Congress never intended to grant the EPA that authority. I believe strongly that the executive authorities--be that police, FBI, NSA, ICE, or EPA--should not have the ability to creatively interpret laws. If we allow them to do that, we open the door to innumerable abuses. So,…

>because I agree with the Court that Congress never intended to grant the EPA that authority. Luckily nothing stops Congress from making laws that clarify what they granted the EPA. If they were so fussed with the EPA doing what they were doing, why didn't they leap up and pass a law that told them to stop? Why is it the court's job to tell congress what they meant to say? Is congress mute?

You're looking at it completely backwards. Congress was fine to let the EPA run around and do whatever, because that means people can bitch at the EPA instead of Congress.

> Why is it the court's job to tell congress what they meant to say?

That's... not what they're doing. The court is telling Congress that if you want an agency to have the power to make vast, sweeping changes, then you have to be explicit. They don't get to create an agency and then just give them blanket authority to do anything they want, at any scale.

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

#923

Post by rory »

Spivak wrote: post #319
ComputerGuru wrote: post #221

PDF of the ruling: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf As usual, it’s more nuanced than the headline.

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

How many of those same people were mad about Obergefell, which did just that?

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

#924

Post by jaywalk »

Buttons840 wrote: post #765
philosopher1234 wrote: post #699

Every surpreme court article makes me hate this community a bit more. There is far too much obsessing over "their logic is consistent" and far too much intentional ignorance of the fact that they chose which logic to bring to bear on which issues, and that there are many other possible ways to apply consistent logic. Their logic can be consistent and they can still be partisans, looking to implement a specific agenda…

As an example, my understanding is that the federal government can regulate my ability to grow a plant and consume it in my own home based upon their argument that I'm participating in interstate commerce. The feds argued that growing a plan is participating in interstate commerce[1]. This law will stand while the court clutches their pearls about the environmental protection agency seeking to protect the environment…

The court can't just overturn laws. Cases have to be brought to them first. So your argument of "why is X bad law allowed to stand when they just overturned Y?" doesn't hold water.

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

#925

Post by bumby »

landryraccoon wrote: post #792
lolinder wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support this ruling not because I think that the EPA shouldn't have the authority to cap emissions, but because I agree with the Court that Congress never intended to grant the EPA that authority. I believe strongly that the executive authorities--be that police, FBI, NSA, ICE, or EPA--should not have the ability to creatively interpret laws. If we allow them to do that, we open the door to innumerable abuses. So,…

I find this argument very unconvincing. To use an engineering analogy, if the government were a software application, this is very much like a senior engineer going on a major refactor of a production system, causing huge breaking changes for the sake of "principles", without consulting product, CS or QA. For the sake of argument, lets grant that there's some force to those principles. Is that justification for sudde…

Is that justification for suddenly breaking a system that was working

The fact that West Virginia v. EPA was brought up in the first place indicates that the system was not working, at least for some stakeholders.

Even if the system was working for most stakeholders does not mean it was Constitutional. The Court's job is to determine legality, but they need to wait until a case is brought before them, whether it's immediately or 10 years later. It's due process.

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

#926

Post by fmorel »

devwastaken wrote: post #910
Sakos wrote: post #895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like people don't actually realize what the consequences of this will really be. https://today.law.harvard.edu/scotus-preview-west-virginia-v... > “Supporters of the major questions doctrine would characterize this as taking power away from agencies and giving it to Congress, because they would say Congress is democratically accountable, and therefore should be making the major policy decisions,” says Goho. “C…

Government agencies are comprised of people. The same people that work a desk job they hate. They're not elected, and don't have to demonstrate worth for the position, yet can execute sanctioned harm against individuals That's two major flaws that slaps democracy in the face. People are dissilusioned by organizations out of their reach that can harm them, and they do not feel they are represented. Iron Law is the nam…

The leadership of all agencies is appointed, not hired.

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

#927

Post by DFHippie »

efitz wrote: post #808
DFHippie wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if the Congress wants EPA to regulate emissions the way they tried to do, all it needs to do is to pass a law explicitly instructing it to do so. Of course, it won’t, because there is no political will in Congress to pass this. This doesn't accurately represent the present situation on this or really any topic. It makes is sound like members of Congress simply don't care. Unless the filibuster is removed or reforme…

In my mind all this means that things are working as intended. The Constitution was set up to limit what the federal government can do, and the Congress (particularly the senate) was set up to make it hard to do things that did not have significant support over and above a simple majority. FDR set up a bureaucratic state to try to get around this, but it’s not what the constitution envisioned. I for one am happy that…

> I for one am happy that unelected bureaucrats (who the voters have no way to get rid of) now have less power, and that politicians who can be held accountable now have to act explicitly to make big changes. Again, working as designed.

Politicians are held accountable for not doing things as well. In our current system whoever is in power is held accountable, even if they didn't do anything because they were blocked by our byzantine form of government. But the politicians who should be held accountable are the ones who blocked it. Do you view this as a good system?

Consider a scenario:

President Bob and the Do Something party are in power. They really, really, really want to do something. Everyone is yelling at them to do something! Something must be done! But the Do Nothing party uses some procedural mechanism, or their control of the cloak room, or the secret password written on the back of the Constitution, to keep anything from happening. The public doesn't understand the system, because few people do; all they see is that NOTHING IS GETTING DONE. The Do Nothing party is quite pleased to stick all the blame on the Do Something party. They don't enlighten the voters. Even while they block any action they go on TV and solemnly intone about the fecklessness of the Do Something party. They said they would do something! Look what they do when in power! So feckless! So the voters punish the Do Something party at the polls.

This is more or less how our system of government works.

Sometimes something needs to be done. But we can't do anything!*

* Footnote: this isn't strictly true. The Do Something party will cooperate with the Do Nothing party on those rare occasions when the Do Nothingers actually want to do something. The Do Nothing party will not reciprocate.

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

#928

Post by aaron_m04 »

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 the Congress wants EPA to regulate emissions the way they tried to do, all it needs to do is to pass a law explicitly instructing it to do so. Of course, it won’t, because there is no political will in Congress to pass this.

At this stage in the climate crisis, we really need to be focused on direct results of political actions. The majority of the US population wants regulations to fight climate change, and the consensus among climate scientists is that if we don't aggressively cut carbon emissions immediately, things will get really out of hand. Therefore, if the Supreme Court is reducing the EPA's ability to help this, it is both anti-democratic and massively harmful to the public good. It really doesn't matter that the EPA is executive overreach according to some document written 230 years ago.

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

#929

Post by yucky »

Sakos wrote: post #895
philosopher1234 wrote: post #699

Every surpreme court article makes me hate this community a bit more. There is far too much obsessing over "their logic is consistent" and far too much intentional ignorance of the fact that they chose which logic to bring to bear on which issues, and that there are many other possible ways to apply consistent logic. Their logic can be consistent and they can still be partisans, looking to implement a specific agenda…

I feel like people don't actually realize what the consequences of this will really be. https://today.law.harvard.edu/scotus-preview-west-virginia-v... > “Supporters of the major questions doctrine would characterize this as taking power away from agencies and giving it to Congress, because they would say Congress is democratically accountable, and therefore should be making the major policy decisions,” says Goho. “C…

No post body was provided.

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

#930

Post by redler »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #199

So to recap: the SCOTUS has ruled that the agency established and authorized by Congress to regulate environmental protection does not have the authority to regulate environmental protection. Did I get that right?

Simplified: "The manner in which a vanishingly small group of megadonors and think tank funders make, keep, grow, and distribute their money should be nearly impossible to regulate."
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