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Congress did vote for EPA to have this power. The Supreme Court decided that they didn't like where that power led, and is now restricting the types of laws tha
by epistasis 4y ago
Congress did vote for EPA to have this power. The Supreme Court decided that they didn't like where that power led, and is now restricting the types of laws that Congress can make.
- rayiner 4y agoCongress voted in 1970 for the EPA to have the power to address climate change by controlling the nationwide mix of power generators? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States) I think if you asked any of the folks in 1970 whether that was the intent of the Clean Air Act they’d be surprised.
- epistasis 4y agoI don't understand why your question could possibly be answered by anything but a yes. Can you provide any evidence that regulating clean air does not apply to air pollutants? If a person thinks that CO2 is not air pollution, then the onus is on them to show that it's not. Repealing an entire class of laws in order to stop undesired scientific conclusions is not a good way to set legal precedent.
- mlindner 4y agoHow did that act give carte blanche to the federal government to basically completely commandeer the electricity sector in each state? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Power_Plan > The plan will require individual states to meet specific standards with respect to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.[22] States are free to reduce emissions by various means, and must submit emissions reductions plans by September 2016, or, with an extension approval, by September 2018.[23] If a state has not submitted a plan by then, the EPA will impose its own plan on that state.[23]
- epistasis 4y agoIt's not commandeering the electricity sector, it's regulating air pollution. This is not carte Blanche, it was laid out in great detail through the executive authority and extensively documented to be within the authority of the EPA. However, some politicians didn't like this outcome. They didn't have the votes, so they are legislating from the bench. There's no other way to view this. What you call "commandeering" is exactly the same as all the other regulations, like sulphuric oxide for acid rain. It's just that some people have politics that takes precedence over the possible scientific outcomes.
- rayiner 4y agoThe Clean Air Act embodies a very specific mechanism. It gives the EPA the power to set emissions limits, but provides that those limits must be based on the capabilities of emissions reduction systems, mainly scrubbers of various sorts. And there’s different levels for new versus preexisting sources. So for a new source, the, EPA can set the limit at a level that can only be achieved with BACT (best available control technology). For an existing source, it can only set the limit at a level achievable by lesser control technology. The thing about CO2 is that there is no control technology you can install on a plant to scrub out the CO2. That would ordinarily preclude the EPA from setting an emissions limit—because it can only set those limits based on what control technologies can achieve. So what the EPA did was say that states could meet the emissions targets by switching from coal to renewable sources, and justified setting an emissions limit on the theory that this was an “emissions reduction system” under the statute.
- rayiner 4y agoThe Clean Air Act doesn’t give the EPA blanket authority to “regulate clean air.” Congress can’t permissibly delegate an entire sector over to an administrative agency under the Constitution, and didn’t. The statute gives the EPA specific approaches that it’s allowed to use.
- epistasis 4y agoThe EPA was following the statute when it made its carbon ruling. Past actions of the EPA have been similar, though you phrase it as "delegate an entire sector over to an administrative agency," it's exactly what's been done in the past. The only difference this time is that it's CO2 as the pollutant, and fossil fuel interests are extremely politically powerful, and don't like the science that shows that CO2 is a pollutant. That's it. Remember when the ruling happened, and all sorts of people were like "CO2 can't be a pollutant"? This is the outcome of that thought. If EPA did not have this authority, by law, then this would have been challenged on much easier grounds far before. In order for the EPA's actions to be overturned, the court had to overturn the very law itself.
- rayiner 4y agoThis ruling has nothing to do with whether CO2 is a “pollutant.” Congress cannot delegate a sector to an agency, because agencies are executive branch entities and the executive branch can’t make laws. Executive branch agencies operate under the fiction that they are merely enforcing laws Congress has created. That’s why Congress can’t delegate agencies the power to make rules with the force of law in an entire sector. It has to be more specific, so that the agency is simply “filling in the details.” And the Clean Air Act is specific. It allows the EPA to fill in the details about pollutants and emissions levels. But it doesn’t give the EPA blanket authority to do whatever is necessary to achieve those targets. It has a detailed menu of measures, such as requiring particular types of emissions control technology on individual plants. In this case the EPA told the entire energy sector to switch away from coal to renewables. That wasn’t on the list of measures available under the Clean Air Act.
- 4y ago
- mlindner 4y agoHow do you know what Congress was thinking? You can't read the mind of Congress. Also, the Supreme Court has always restricted the types of laws that Congress can pass, based on what the Constitution says. However this doesn't involve Constitutionality. Congress can absolutely pass a law giving this exact power to the EPA and the Supreme Court couldn't touch it.