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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

#931

Post by steveylang »

The fundamental issue is, is carbon dioxide an air pollutant? This is not so much about interpretation of the Clean Air Act IMO, as it is about peoples' opposing views on carbon dioxide as a significant contributor to climate change.

Those who believe carbon dioxide absolutely is contributing to climate change and harming our planet would likely classify carbon dioxide as an air pollutant and thus believe the EPA has the power to regulate it. Those that believe otherwise are not going to consider carbon dioxide an 'air pollutant' and thus not subject EPA regulation.

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

#932

Post by sterlind »

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…

even Scalia thought Thomas was a kook for inventing the "major questions doctrine." where in the Constitution can you find this? separation of powers, apparently, if you're looking through a seer stone in a hat at some golden tablets.

the majority invented the doctrine to neuter Federal agencies.

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

#933

Post by xyzzyz »

aaron_m04 wrote: post #928
xyzzyz wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, a…

No, I strongly disagree. If elected representatives cannot agree on what is proper policy and pass it as law, I for one do not want some nameless bureaucrats be the ones calling the shots. Unelected bureaucrats creating policy as they wish, unconstrained by what the law actually says, is what actually is undemocratic.

Look, even as there might be general agreement among the people to fight climate change, there might be little to no agreement among the people as to how to actually proceed doing that. Because of this, you cannot say that blocking EPA here is undemocratic, because “ majority of the US population wants regulations to fight climate change”: it is very much untrue that majority of people want the exact policy that EPA tries to introduce, and have it be executed by EPA. It’s like saying that majority of US population want regulations to improve their commute times, so SCOTUS cannot block DoT from eminent-domaining land through cities and building 10 lane highways on it. Some people want that, sure, but others want more trains or zoning regulations to improve walkability, and there is no majority agreement here on the details of the policy. You certainly don’t want unelected bureaucrats with no accountability to voters be deciding major issues like that.

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

#934

Post by sterlind »

mistrial9 wrote: post #697
dfxm12 wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the strategy of the Federalist Society, make rulings via the undemocratic SCOTUS under the guise of giving states/congress power, but then also making sure that state elections are undemocratic via gerrymandering, voting laws, etc. It doesn't help that taking action on matters of national importance is inherently difficult in a Federalist government.

from Wikipedia '... The Federalist Society provides its 70,000 members with "intellectual sparring and professional grooming.' without taking sides on this attorney gang, it seems to be like a bunch of professional boxers and others here are mad because they cannot fight. I do not want to fight lawyers, but calling them a conspiracy, when they specifically engage and practice debate professionally, is sort of patheti…

I grew up going to FedSoc. officially, it's just a debate society - the panels are streamed on CSPAN, it's all public. unofficially, it's a Mecca of networking for conservative lawyers. the upper echelons are nearly exclusively Catholics, and the founder provided Trump with shortlists of Justices he could pick from. and all that networking made it happen. it's no coincidence all the recent nominees are Catholic.

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

#935

Post by Bhilai »

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 agree and its frustrating to see this crowd continually push the point that congress needs to grant explicit powers to the EPA when they already know that every single Republican politician is against moving the needle on climate change. This case was filed by 19 Republican lead states which constitute 44% of emissions in the US and is a multiyear effort by conservative climate change deniers[1] Any significant law will simply not pass the senate because the only thing senate Republicans are apparently good at is blocking progress. So this double play on the part of right leaning commentators is really in bad faith.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/climate/supreme-court-cli...

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

#936

Post by hellojesus »

Bhilai wrote: post #935
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 agree and its frustrating to see this crowd continually push the point that congress needs to grant explicit powers to the EPA when they already know that every single Republican politician is against moving the needle on climate change. This case was filed by 19 Republican lead states which constitute 44% of emissions in the US and is a multiyear effort by conservative climate change deniers[1] Any significant law…

Couldn't Congress roll out a clarification of this rule quickly? They own the big three right now, so it would be pretty easy if they kept any fluff out of the legislation.

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

#937

Post by rory »

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…

There's really no reason I can think of that the Dems would deem the Freedom of Choice Act "not a priority" other to play political games in future presidential races. I'm convinced they basically wanted to be able to continue to use the threat of a Roe overturn to steer swing voters to their side, but never actually believed it would happen.

That said, I highly doubt Loving would ever be overturned. It sits on very solid legal ground, and the most conservative judge on the court is in an interracial marriage. Obergefell is genuinely at risk though.

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

#938

Post by scarmig »

Bhilai wrote: post #935
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 agree and its frustrating to see this crowd continually push the point that congress needs to grant explicit powers to the EPA when they already know that every single Republican politician is against moving the needle on climate change. This case was filed by 19 Republican lead states which constitute 44% of emissions in the US and is a multiyear effort by conservative climate change deniers[1] Any significant law…

This has to be seen as part of a broader program against the administrative state, although here it takes the contours of the climate debate.

For the coming years you'll be seeing the same approach used in this decision to rip apart everything from labor regulations to HUD programs.

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

#939

Post by redler »

shrimpx wrote: post #521
fzeroracer wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and the dissent spells that out clearly. An excerpt from the dissent: > The majority says it is simply “not plausible” that Congress enabled EPA to regulate power plants’ emissions through generation shift- ing. Ante, at 31. But that is just what Congress did when it broadly authorized EPA in Section 111 to select the “best system of emission reduction” for power plants. §7411(a)(1). The “best system” full stop—…

These literalist justices are of the mind that if it wasn’t explicitly written, then it’s not allowed. Generalist/broad swath language is to be ignored. Only specific instruction is to be interpreted.

Yet they decide other landmark cases with a newly invented test for "deeply rooted history and tradition", through which they can put on their highly subjective amateur historian hats to engineer a desired outcome.

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

#940

Post by redler »

Miner49er wrote: post #629
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.

How was Dobbs a win for individual liberty? Shouldn't you want the 14th amendment to protect individual liberty as widely as possible? Or do you think it's better for the Constitution to not protect individual liberties?

It's a necessary step on the road to Blastular Personhood.
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