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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,
by biggieshellz 4y ago
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.
- jeffbee 4y agoAh yes, but that would require Congress to actually do something, which hasn't happened in the last 18 months so we shouldn't expect it to start. Congress could have mooted this case with ordinary statutory procedures at any point, but did not.
- karaterobot 4y agoBut they probably should, and I hope this will get them to do it.
- jeffbee 4y agoImpossible because their 50th guy in the Senate is a W. Virginia coal mining millionaire. He's all but literally the appellant in this case.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoUnlikely. Republicans were only barely willing to work with democrats after the latest in a long string of people gunning down school children. Since hatred of the environment is practically a party platform, they certainly aren't going to cooperate on giving the EPA anything ever.
- xthrowawayxx 4y agoI think a good thing that laws can't pass without sufficient consensus. If you can bypass consensus for the greater good then so can the other side.
- xpe 4y agoThis statement is an obvious assumption of democracy. Am I missing something more?
- cogman10 4y agoThe issue is one of "arms racing". Consider, for example, how the FDA operates. They have a broad mandate to keep food clean and drugs safe. They don't have an explicit mandate of "you must only regulate tylenol and aspirin, we need to pass a law for new drugs each time they come up." This ruling finds the EPA, who has the mandate to keep pollutants out of the air, can't determine that CO2 is a pollutant. Why is that? The 2016 clean air act specifically gave them the power to regulate air pollutants. The only answer is political activism. There is no difference between the FDA's broad mandate and the EPA's broad mandate. I recommend reading the dissent on this case. It makes it absolutely clear that this is an EPA power. The conservatives couldn't get new laws passed repealing the EPA, so instead they packed the court with political activists so they could make law from the bench.
- iostream24 4y agoYet another reasonable comment that some shadow bully has downvoted gray. HN is broken
- shadowgovt 4y agoHN is very ill-suited to discussing politics in general. That's a known feature.
- gruez 4y agoIt might be obvious, but I feel like it's lost due to partisan motivated reasoning. eg. when your preferred party doesn't control the senate, then the filibusterer is an important part part of democracy that forces widespread consensus, but when your party does control the senate the filibusterer is a undemocratic tactic used by the minority to obstruct the majority.
- 4y ago
- brodouevencode 4y agoThis is as much a blow to chevron deference than anything. This is a good thing.
- xpe 4y agoPlease explain.
- willis936 4y agoI'll attempt to explain on their behalf: technocracy bad, regulatory capture good.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoDon't put words in other peoples' mouths. Especially strawman words. It's not honest, it's not nice, and it's against the site guidelines.
- brodouevencode 4y agoThis is a decent definition: "administrative law principle that compels federal courts to defer to a federal agency's interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statute that Congress delegated to the agency to administer." The ruling basically undermines the previous notion of the judiciary deferring to an administrative agency, because it just didn't, therefore forcing the legislature to be more explicit in its desires.
- jrochkind1 4y agoWhy do you see a blow to the chevron deference doctrine as a good thing? I'd say that the doctrine properly tries to keep the supreme court, the least democratically responsible branch of US federal government, from being the most powerful of the three branches of government.
- brodouevencode 4y ago> being the most powerful of the three branches of government. By pushing the responsibility to lifelong bureaucrats? I honestly don't see a difference there.
- micromacrofoot 4y ago> Congress can still pass a law Since when
- wbradmoore 4y ago
- matthewdgreen 4y ago> 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.
- barsonme 4y agoThey’ve declined to do a lot over the last decade :)
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 4y agoMoscow cocaine McConnell has sand bagged any progress on anything substantive in return for the handsome bribes he’s accepted and arranged.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoWell, 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".
- AbrahamParangi 4y agoI think the argument is that the EPA considered itself to have broad discretion and congress was silent on the matter, and more generally do the executive functions have whatever discretion they assume to have unless congress specifically limits them? Or rather, do they have only the permit that congress gives them?
- tick_tock_tick 4y agoThat's a horrible argument. The Executive branch should never had default allow permissions for anything. The amount of mental gymnastic many of our current regulator bodies have used to claim more authority is already obscene.
- fzeroracer 4y agoDo y'all not consider how the EPA came into being in the first place? It exists because a previous congress did do something and delegated their authority for a very specific reason. Like it was a joint effort between Republicans and Democrats even. What this Supreme Court has decided to do is say that what they did doesn't matter, knowing that the current makeup in congress is in gridlock due to how modern day Republicans behave. Like the dissent was posted here. Congress explicitly empowered the EPA to work towards the best system of emission reduction.
- extheat 4y agoCongress has to be explicit with what powers they delegate. They can’t just say “do whatever you want to fix this problem”. Neither does it say that in the law. It’s not the job of SCOTUS to give you the outcome you want. It’s to rule on what the law does say and is constitutionally acceptable.
- iostream24 4y agoCongress granted the EPA power to regulate air pollution. CO2 and methane are harmful pollutants that cause a greenhouse effect, and the EPA was granted the authority to address this. Our activist extremely biased Supreme Court has several members who are part of a political advocacy operation called the federalist society and ensures that members get Supreme Court placement specifically to achieve federalist society goals. Nothing about this is secret. Nothing about this is acceptable
- chronometry888 4y agoNo they can't. I mean, legally they have the authority to do so. But congress is pretty broken. By the time a congress is elected that can effectively legislate a solution to climate change, it will be too late. Giving a broken legislative body the sole responsibility of literally saving the world is a really, really dumb idea.