This is extremely dangerous. Waiving environmental review and consideration when building roads and bridges is extremely foolish. They greatly effect water quality at crossings and alongside the roads. My guess is this will be held up in courts and not allowed to go further -- it is an extreme deviation from what we currently do (which is held up by supreme court precedent). Entire industries are built on doing environmental impact studies and mitigation.
Perhaps we can push back against what is effectively legislation by the executive branch. Then, here's the tough part, don't expand executive power when your own party is in the white house.
Something’s gotta give. There’s always going to be some sort of gross underbelly to this level of economic damage. I would personally prefer vastly higher taxes but I recognize that it has to come from somewhere.
Can those kinds of environmental issues be fixed later, or are they generally unrecoverable? It may be worth some number of fixable environmental issues to recover from the pandemic faster.
Environmental review is constantly used to stop housing construction and entrench existing segregation. Let's build some more of that so we won't need to drive anywhere :)
e: Since when do people on HN downvote calls to build more housing??
In case anyone considers writing this off as a partisan or economic issue, it's worth remembering that both of the acts mentioned here -- the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act -- were enacted by a Republican president during a recession.
He was hardly an environmentalist, either. That's how important this was 50 years ago.
Why have we as a people allowed our past three administrations to continue to rule by fiat? Ultimately, these are probably perfectly reasonable ideas, but this kind of action must come from the legislature.
Because your system of government is so fundamentally broken it barely even qualifies as a democracy anymore?
All the systems built into the US government were designed for a country with 1% the number of people it has now, when the fastest method of communication was a horse and the majority of it's populace were farmers.
There are a few simple things that could be done right now to fix the US government (abolish the EC and gerrymandering to start with), but no one has the political will to do it.
The legislature has already long since punted regulation of most things to the executive. The Code of Federal Regulations is a lot larger and lengthier than the United States Code. That includes environmental regulations: the EPA is an executive agency.
If your response is that the above is a bad idea, I agree; I think the legislature should be prevented (by Constitutional amendment, if necessary) from punting regulation to the executive. Anything that has the force of law--and regulations issued by executive agencies do--should have to go through the Constitutional process to create a law. But that's not how things are currently done.
It took a lifetime of effort from Reagan Republicans to get where we are now. Working tirelessly for decades to make sure government is ineffective and doesn’t work.
> The order will waive several long-standing environmental laws
Is it possible for an executive order to "waive laws"? I thought laws take precedence over executive orders. If this were possible, then the President could waive all the laws he didn't like, and have more power than a king.
I'd be grateful if someone who understands thew law better than I do could give some color here.
As far as I've understood, the president as boss of the executive branch can order the executive branch to not apply a law or at least not prosecute violations. One means to do this is to impose a certain interpretation, e.g. ordering "severe environmental impact" to mean nothing less than "making the area uninhabitable for anything beyond bacteria for more than 100 years" or something.
Also, laws are often vague and their intent is clarified in regulations issued by the executive, e.g. the EPA. The president could order those regulations to be changed.
The executive branch can simply not enforce the law which effectively nullifies it. That being said, the POTUS still doesn't have the power to make up new laws to serve his interests.
Could an executive order be made to make the approval process more effective and efficient? We did the fist part of the work by identifying the bottle necks (at least broadly), the Acts where approved by Congress so now let’s optimize.
It seems like a lot of these executive order get thrown out which if true seems like a big waste of time and resources.
Because when your guy gets in you want them to have power to make real change.
That's the idea anyhow. If we nerf the powers for one side, when our side gets in they will be nerfed also. Other systems do things differently of course, but every system wants to maintain itself.
Ok, can someone please explain to me what the limits on executive orders are? It seems like the president is allowed to right executive orders at any time, for any reason, and completely side step the legislature?
[+] [-] amcoastal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LanceH|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimbob45|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Lammy|5 years ago|reply
e: Since when do people on HN downvote calls to build more housing??
[+] [-] ken|5 years ago|reply
He was hardly an environmentalist, either. That's how important this was 50 years ago.
[+] [-] pstuart|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tathougies|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cgrealy|5 years ago|reply
All the systems built into the US government were designed for a country with 1% the number of people it has now, when the fastest method of communication was a horse and the majority of it's populace were farmers.
There are a few simple things that could be done right now to fix the US government (abolish the EC and gerrymandering to start with), but no one has the political will to do it.
[+] [-] pdonis|5 years ago|reply
If your response is that the above is a bad idea, I agree; I think the legislature should be prevented (by Constitutional amendment, if necessary) from punting regulation to the executive. Anything that has the force of law--and regulations issued by executive agencies do--should have to go through the Constitutional process to create a law. But that's not how things are currently done.
[+] [-] cwhiz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BurningFrog|5 years ago|reply
Since it hasn't for decades, the Imperial Presidency rises to fill the vacuum.
[+] [-] chmaynard|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] credit_guy|5 years ago|reply
Is it possible for an executive order to "waive laws"? I thought laws take precedence over executive orders. If this were possible, then the President could waive all the laws he didn't like, and have more power than a king.
I'd be grateful if someone who understands thew law better than I do could give some color here.
[+] [-] corty|5 years ago|reply
Also, laws are often vague and their intent is clarified in regulations issued by the executive, e.g. the EPA. The president could order those regulations to be changed.
[+] [-] blackflame7000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] _y5hn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rudolph9|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TaylorAlexander|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrfusion|5 years ago|reply
It’s annoying how many laws flip flop every eight years.
[+] [-] thinkingemote|5 years ago|reply
That's the idea anyhow. If we nerf the powers for one side, when our side gets in they will be nerfed also. Other systems do things differently of course, but every system wants to maintain itself.
[+] [-] olliej|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] novalis78|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inappropriately|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] chmaynard|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] colejohnson66|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlieegan3|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ccmcarey|5 years ago|reply