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 Clean Air Act does not purport to give the EPA blanket regulatory authority over anything involving emissions into the air. It has detailed provisions focused on reducing the amount of toxic pollutants, in particular through the use of control (scrubbing) technologies. This case concerns whether the EPA can use its power to impose control technologies on power plants, to force the industry to use a particular mix of power generation sources (solar, gas, etc.). The Court decided that the statute did not confer on the EPA the power to do that. The relevant discussion begins on page 16.
This decision gives legs to something that has been called the "major questions doctrine." The gist of that doctrine is that an agency can't stretch some pre-existing grant of Congressional authority to create sweeping regulations addressing a major new problem. As applied here, that means that the EPA can't rely on authority delegated by Congress to, for example, tell coal plants what kind of scrubbers they have to use, to tackle climate change. pp. 17-19.
What’s interesting about this ruling (if you listened to the oral arguments and read the ruling) is that it appears to undercut the ability for any executive agency to make a rule, under them claim that congress cannot delegate its powers.
So the FAA can’t determine and then require that aircraft have transponders. Congress has to do this.
I don't agree it will be chaos. Congress has for far too long abdicated what it is supposed to be directly responsible for to unelected bureaucrats that exist in agencies that are overseen by the executive branch of government.
Congress is now free to focused on creating chaos between the people that elect them. When is the last time you've seen anyone from Congress campaign on any substantive issue? I've not seen it in my lifetime they leave that campaign up to the president. Congress is invested with the sole power to regulate our money when is the last time you've seen them do anything except throw up bloated budgets? They have completely advocated that power to the Federal reserve of which they exercise zero oversight of and apparently leave it to the president who also lets it run autonomously.
So what you call chaos is reconnecting the actual responsibilities of our elected representatives with their duties. I for one would very much enjoy seeing my elected representative actually doing their constitutional duties instead of pitting citizen that one another's throat in order to get reelected again.
I don't think this is correct. Congress can definitely delegate its power, they are just saying that Congress didn't delegate the power the EPA is trying to use in this case.
From the final paragraph of the opinion:
"But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the
authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in
Section 111(d). A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body."
So it seems that Congress can still give the EPA a more clear delegation that they have this power.
I read this differently (and am a former lawyer who worked on administrative law). This is about the "major questions doctrine", which involves a subset of administrative actions. It's not about whether administrative agencies can do anything whatsoever.
> Under this body of law, known as the major questions doctrine, given both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent, the agency must point to “clear congressional authorization” for the authority it claims.
The reasoning for this is that:
> We presume that “Congress intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies
That is silly hyperbolic overreaction. The court literally upheld the EPA regulating greenhouse gasses at the point of creation. It upheld the specific regulations how coal was burned. All it said was the EPA wasn't empowered to move into grid management schemes. If congress wants to grant them that power, it can.
I didn't see the claim that they can't delegate. The issue I saw discussed is whether or not a specific power was delegated. I don't see rhem invalidating all agency regulations. I do see them requiring better definitions to support that regulation. (Eg C02 was not considered a pollutant under the original grant of power, so the court doesn't want to interpret it to be inclusive).
I agree with "congress cannot delegate it's powers" to a certain extent.
Negative example: The BATF has a splendid history of literally doing nothing except putting it's critics behind bars, while solving 0 actual crime and preventing any sort of mass tradgedies.
Positive example: The FAA has done an incredible job making air-travel safer than car travel. I have a feeling that a lot of the higher-ups are former engineers and have been able to put politics and red/blue crap aside for a common mission.
Mixed example: The FCC has done a great job on spectrum allocation. They've done a shitty job when on broadband and content regulation, with it quickly becoming politicalized and more concern about red/blue.
Good example: The FDA has done a great job in regulating the industry for their namesake: food and drugs. We have unprecedented levels of safety in both despite not having a complete knowledge of how all drugs work (biology is just complex with a lot of hidden downstream after-effects).
Poor example: The NRC has pretty much just said "No" to fucking everything in nuclear. No progress has been made. We should have 3-5 reactors (on average) in every state. Instead we're still running 50 year old designs (not _necessarily bad_ but not great either) when we could have Generation III+ with passive failure modes.
That brings me to the EPA. I think they've done a lot of good: energy efficiency ultimately benefits the consumer in nearly every case. I have an air conditioner that kicks out a splendid 58degree air stream in the summer heat and extraordinarily low energy consumption levels. The EPA has successfully sued countless corporations and created superfund sights when they just dump industrial waste without a plan to handle it.
Unfortunately, as red/blue politics get involved in an agency, everyone loses. And the finger pointing begins. As such, the only "way out" may be to say delegate it to Congress. I'm not sure where we go from here.
> The FDA has done a great job in regulating the industry for their namesake: food and drugs.
The Sackler Family/Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin has entered the chat
It's hard to see what the FDA (didn't) do in that case as anything but complete corruption. Allowing a new label for this new untested drug and then the head left to go work for Purdue shortly after? Revolving door.
I'm not sure whether "good" is better or worse than "positive", but the FDA is definitely closer to "mixed" than the FAA. I'm generally very pro-FDA for the reasons you listed, and argue against the libertarians who want to abolish it. However, there's lots of legitimate criticisms about how it's frequently too conservative in allowing trials or approval for potentially life-saving medication, or approving medications and supplements that are considered safe and commonly-used by other countries.
Scott Alexander of SSC/ACX has many[1][2][3], many[4][5][6] posts pointing out instances in which the FDA's arguable-excessive roadblocks have failed US healthcare patients, coming from his experience as a professional psychiatrist.
> Positive example: The FAA has done an incredible job making air-travel safer than car travel. I have a feeling that a lot of the higher-ups are former engineers and have been able to put politics and red/blue crap aside for a common mission.
The EPA was created to empower experts to make informed decisions with the goal of benefiting the public good. The science of regulating pollutants is hard, and neither our representatives nor the voters who elect them and ultimately hold them accountable should be expected to develop that expertise.
The vested interests who benefit from the fossil fuel industry control the flow of information to our representatives through lobbyists, and to the public through advertising. Panels of experts in their field are harder to influence.
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.
> 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.
I really don't like having this unelected councils of wizards who get wield god-like "authority"-- it feels a bit gross in a democracy.
I 'get it' w/ respect BrownvBoard, Miranda, etc, but at least in my lifetime the court hasn't done much to expand or protect my rights. Greatest hits from them are weird election cases (Florida 2000) making it easier for really shadowy/fucked organizations to plow $$$ into elections.
If these folks are indeed just umpires & good old legal "scholars" who are there to call balls & strikes, why are hundreds of millions dollars spent promoting + grooming these individuals?
Going forward I'm very much in favor of subtle "judicial humiliation"-- across the board de-sanctify this institution
We don't have time for that. By the time a congress is elected that is willing to make laws that curb emissions, it will be too late. So much damage will already have been done.
Pushing responsibility to literally save the world onto a broken legislative body is idiotic.
For so long as the American people respect the US Supreme Court, their laws can be nullified on the say-so of this Court and are thus worthless. That's the underlying point of this whole suite of rulings.
Congress can write laws, the Court can decide they don't mean what you thought they mean, and, apparently, you will cheerfully conclude that the Court is wise and you're foolish, perhaps only realising the danger when it is too late.
I really don't understand the decision. In my mental model the executive branch exists to implement the laws that Congress passes, Congress deliberately leaves leeway in laws to give the executive branch flexibility, this flexibility has been previously affirmed by the court decision Chevron v. NRDC.
This decision seems to give more power to Congress but on net I think it makes the laws Congress passes weaker because it strips away the effectiveness of the implementation.
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.
That's exactly what this may do. The ATF in theory can't just up and decide what to ban without congress making a law. Turning law abiding citizens into felons overnight. Bumpstock ban? That's gone in theory. FRT trigger? Braces? ATF is going to quickly realize they can't just make shit up on the fly if it's not a law.
But based on Egbert and Vega, there's now precedent for federal agents to perform warrantless raids, seizures, and arrests, without reading Miranda warnings, with no legal consequences.
The goal of this Supreme Court seems to be the dismantling of the past century of reading the Constitution. They are pushing hard to put the onus on Congress to pass explicit amendments to protect human rights, and to be more explicit in the power they grant the Executive. And they don't seem to care about religion being defacto intertwined with public education.
The United States was "the first modern democracy". But we're running on shoddy, unpatched OS that none of the maintainers feel like fixing, and the users can't change the maintainers due to the rules.
Ideally:
The Senate would be gone.
Either gerrymandering would be dismantled, or state elections for House would be multi-member elections. The House would scale with population.
Justices of the Supreme Court would have a term limit of say, 18 years.
Constitutional amendments would not require such a supermajority of state legislatures.
The Federal government would have a standard for voting audits and take a more active role in protecting voting rights, since the ability for the Constitution to be amended depends on the integrity of state elections as well as federal elections.
Frankly, I don't see a way out of the slow death spiral this country is in without significant upheaval.
I guess it's time for congress to actually pass laws (first abortion, and now greenhouse gasses).
Going to be a lot of anger about the results this court season, but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations.
They are limiting the ability of the government to make and enforce laws. The EPA is created with Congressional authority and is empowered to act on their behalf.
Castrating the federal government will have negative repercussions. If the federal government doesn't have the power to control the states, then why bother having one?
I've lived here in the US for 12 years and recently became a US Citizen. Coming from Ireland, to me the US is quite far from a functioning democracy. The democratic will of the people is not reflected in the make-up of congress, the courts, or three times in my lifetime - the Presidency (Clinton, W. Bush, and Trump were each elected by popular minorities).
Much of this is a result of the court's rulings (very directly in the case of Bush!), entrenching gerrymandering and making it harder and harder to remove the massively corrupting bribery for access that fuels the political system.
Deferring administrative decisions to congress is not a recipe for more democracy, but for more gridlock, and it hands a historically and internationally extremist faction the political victories they want anyway. It will generate Republican outcomes even from Democratic Party executives and congresses (like the current one).
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?
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
> The case against the EPA was brought by West Virginia on behalf of 18 other mostly Republican-led states and some of the nation's largest coal companies.
>
> They were challenging whether the agency has the power to regulate planet-warming emissions for state-wide power sectors or just individual power plants.
>
> These 19 states were worried their power sectors would be regulated and they would be forced to move away from using coal.
I'm losing hope that anything practical can be achieved because of idealistic nuance like this. We're missing the forest for the trees. Our goal should be the larger combating of climate change, but individual players like this have amazing power to put up resistance or obstruction to that goal which is a net loss for all of us.
Large economically disruptive policy changes should come from the legislative rather than the executive or judicial branches, as they are more democratically accountable, at a finer level of detail. To the extend that the consitution codifies that, it's a good thing.
How much of the republicans apparent desire to drive climate change off the cliff can be explained by religion and belief in the end of the world? Apparently 40% of americans believe in imminent end of times: https://www.christianpost.com/news/poll-4-in-10-americans-be...
People use idealism to justify decisions that would only be useful in an ideal world, but are terrifying in the real world. This comment thread is a good case study.
Sure, maybe, in an ideal world we want congress to pass laws in the place of every single regulatory body. (This in and of itself is totally unclear to me).
However, the reality is that by getting rid of regulatory agencies we prevent important limits from being enforced.
I mean, read this part of the dissent:
> Again, Section 111(d) tells EPA that when a pollutant—like carbon dioxide—is not regulated through other programs, EPA must undertake a further regulatory effort to control that substance’s emission from existing stationary sources.
There's a backstop in place to allow the EPA to prevent pollutants from fucking us up. Ideally it would be regulated through a formal program. It's not. Does that mean we should just get rid of all backstops & regress to the stone age?
[+] [-] rayiner|3 years ago|reply
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 over anything involving emissions into the air. It has detailed provisions focused on reducing the amount of toxic pollutants, in particular through the use of control (scrubbing) technologies. This case concerns whether the EPA can use its power to impose control technologies on power plants, to force the industry to use a particular mix of power generation sources (solar, gas, etc.). The Court decided that the statute did not confer on the EPA the power to do that. The relevant discussion begins on page 16.
This decision gives legs to something that has been called the "major questions doctrine." The gist of that doctrine is that an agency can't stretch some pre-existing grant of Congressional authority to create sweeping regulations addressing a major new problem. As applied here, that means that the EPA can't rely on authority delegated by Congress to, for example, tell coal plants what kind of scrubbers they have to use, to tackle climate change. pp. 17-19.
[+] [-] gumby|3 years ago|reply
So the FAA can’t determine and then require that aircraft have transponders. Congress has to do this.
If they continue down this path it will be chaos.
[+] [-] elmerfud|3 years ago|reply
Congress is now free to focused on creating chaos between the people that elect them. When is the last time you've seen anyone from Congress campaign on any substantive issue? I've not seen it in my lifetime they leave that campaign up to the president. Congress is invested with the sole power to regulate our money when is the last time you've seen them do anything except throw up bloated budgets? They have completely advocated that power to the Federal reserve of which they exercise zero oversight of and apparently leave it to the president who also lets it run autonomously.
So what you call chaos is reconnecting the actual responsibilities of our elected representatives with their duties. I for one would very much enjoy seeing my elected representative actually doing their constitutional duties instead of pitting citizen that one another's throat in order to get reelected again.
[+] [-] Miner49er|3 years ago|reply
From the final paragraph of the opinion:
"But it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme in Section 111(d). A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body."
So it seems that Congress can still give the EPA a more clear delegation that they have this power.
[+] [-] gnicholas|3 years ago|reply
> Under this body of law, known as the major questions doctrine, given both separation of powers principles and a practical understanding of legislative intent, the agency must point to “clear congressional authorization” for the authority it claims.
The reasoning for this is that:
> We presume that “Congress intends to make major policy decisions itself, not leave those decisions to agencies
[+] [-] jibe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrekandre|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] giantg2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] exabrial|3 years ago|reply
Negative example: The BATF has a splendid history of literally doing nothing except putting it's critics behind bars, while solving 0 actual crime and preventing any sort of mass tradgedies.
Positive example: The FAA has done an incredible job making air-travel safer than car travel. I have a feeling that a lot of the higher-ups are former engineers and have been able to put politics and red/blue crap aside for a common mission.
Mixed example: The FCC has done a great job on spectrum allocation. They've done a shitty job when on broadband and content regulation, with it quickly becoming politicalized and more concern about red/blue.
Good example: The FDA has done a great job in regulating the industry for their namesake: food and drugs. We have unprecedented levels of safety in both despite not having a complete knowledge of how all drugs work (biology is just complex with a lot of hidden downstream after-effects).
Poor example: The NRC has pretty much just said "No" to fucking everything in nuclear. No progress has been made. We should have 3-5 reactors (on average) in every state. Instead we're still running 50 year old designs (not _necessarily bad_ but not great either) when we could have Generation III+ with passive failure modes.
That brings me to the EPA. I think they've done a lot of good: energy efficiency ultimately benefits the consumer in nearly every case. I have an air conditioner that kicks out a splendid 58degree air stream in the summer heat and extraordinarily low energy consumption levels. The EPA has successfully sued countless corporations and created superfund sights when they just dump industrial waste without a plan to handle it.
Unfortunately, as red/blue politics get involved in an agency, everyone loses. And the finger pointing begins. As such, the only "way out" may be to say delegate it to Congress. I'm not sure where we go from here.
[+] [-] joshstrange|3 years ago|reply
The Sackler Family/Purdue Pharma and Oxycontin has entered the chat
It's hard to see what the FDA (didn't) do in that case as anything but complete corruption. Allowing a new label for this new untested drug and then the head left to go work for Purdue shortly after? Revolving door.
[+] [-] LordDragonfang|3 years ago|reply
I'm not sure whether "good" is better or worse than "positive", but the FDA is definitely closer to "mixed" than the FAA. I'm generally very pro-FDA for the reasons you listed, and argue against the libertarians who want to abolish it. However, there's lots of legitimate criticisms about how it's frequently too conservative in allowing trials or approval for potentially life-saving medication, or approving medications and supplements that are considered safe and commonly-used by other countries.
Scott Alexander of SSC/ACX has many[1][2][3], many[4][5][6] posts pointing out instances in which the FDA's arguable-excessive roadblocks have failed US healthcare patients, coming from his experience as a professional psychiatrist.
[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/09/28/sleep-now-by-prescript...
[2] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/15/fish-now-by-prescripti...
[3] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/16/an-iron-curtain-has-de...
[4] https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/03/11/ketamine-now-by-prescr...
[5] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/11/26/a-letter-i-will-probab...
[6] https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/08/29/reverse-voxsplaining-d...
[7] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/adumbrations-of-aducan...
[+] [-] cryptonector|3 years ago|reply
737MAX enters the chat
[+] [-] timeon|3 years ago|reply
Going to hit the wall and let the corporate decide.
[+] [-] clukic|3 years ago|reply
The vested interests who benefit from the fossil fuel industry control the flow of information to our representatives through lobbyists, and to the public through advertising. Panels of experts in their field are harder to influence.
[+] [-] InTheArena|3 years ago|reply
Don't throw out democracy to do so.
[+] [-] biggieshellz|3 years ago|reply
Congress can still pass a law empowering EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
[+] [-] matthewdgreen|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ComputerGuru|3 years ago|reply
As usual, it’s more nuanced than the headline.
[+] [-] ohboii20202|3 years ago|reply
I really don't like having this unelected councils of wizards who get wield god-like "authority"-- it feels a bit gross in a democracy.
I 'get it' w/ respect BrownvBoard, Miranda, etc, but at least in my lifetime the court hasn't done much to expand or protect my rights. Greatest hits from them are weird election cases (Florida 2000) making it easier for really shadowy/fucked organizations to plow $$$ into elections.
If these folks are indeed just umpires & good old legal "scholars" who are there to call balls & strikes, why are hundreds of millions dollars spent promoting + grooming these individuals?
Going forward I'm very much in favor of subtle "judicial humiliation"-- across the board de-sanctify this institution
Step 0-- make 'em take C-SPAN cameras
[+] [-] nostromo|3 years ago|reply
For all the consternation, these decisions are very mutable. Congress just needs to pass laws.
[+] [-] chronometry888|3 years ago|reply
Pushing responsibility to literally save the world onto a broken legislative body is idiotic.
[+] [-] tialaramex|3 years ago|reply
For so long as the American people respect the US Supreme Court, their laws can be nullified on the say-so of this Court and are thus worthless. That's the underlying point of this whole suite of rulings.
Congress can write laws, the Court can decide they don't mean what you thought they mean, and, apparently, you will cheerfully conclude that the Court is wise and you're foolish, perhaps only realising the danger when it is too late.
[+] [-] cryptonector|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 40acres|3 years ago|reply
This decision seems to give more power to Congress but on net I think it makes the laws Congress passes weaker because it strips away the effectiveness of the implementation.
[+] [-] AdmiralAsshat|3 years ago|reply
Did I get that right?
[+] [-] rabuse|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] post_break|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maxwell|3 years ago|reply
But based on Egbert and Vega, there's now precedent for federal agents to perform warrantless raids, seizures, and arrests, without reading Miranda warnings, with no legal consequences.
[+] [-] xdennis|3 years ago|reply
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATF_fictional_sting_operations
[+] [-] the_only_law|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oaththrowaway|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeroonetwothree|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unethical_ban|3 years ago|reply
The United States was "the first modern democracy". But we're running on shoddy, unpatched OS that none of the maintainers feel like fixing, and the users can't change the maintainers due to the rules.
Ideally:
The Senate would be gone.
Either gerrymandering would be dismantled, or state elections for House would be multi-member elections. The House would scale with population.
Justices of the Supreme Court would have a term limit of say, 18 years.
Constitutional amendments would not require such a supermajority of state legislatures.
The Federal government would have a standard for voting audits and take a more active role in protecting voting rights, since the ability for the Constitution to be amended depends on the integrity of state elections as well as federal elections.
Frankly, I don't see a way out of the slow death spiral this country is in without significant upheaval.
[+] [-] bpodgursky|3 years ago|reply
Going to be a lot of anger about the results this court season, but I honestly think it's going to be healthier for democracy overall if congress stop leaning on the courts and bureaucracy to make critical regulations.
[+] [-] Ekaros|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mywittyname|3 years ago|reply
Castrating the federal government will have negative repercussions. If the federal government doesn't have the power to control the states, then why bother having one?
[+] [-] colmmacc|3 years ago|reply
Much of this is a result of the court's rulings (very directly in the case of Bush!), entrenching gerrymandering and making it harder and harder to remove the massively corrupting bribery for access that fuels the political system.
Deferring administrative decisions to congress is not a recipe for more democracy, but for more gridlock, and it hands a historically and internationally extremist faction the political victories they want anyway. It will generate Republican outcomes even from Democratic Party executives and congresses (like the current one).
That's not democracy.
[+] [-] thepasswordis|3 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] pylon|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Miner49er|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gsibble|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hunglee2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrekandre|3 years ago|reply
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 loose gay marriage and probably interracial marriage in many states.....
[+] [-] Workaccount2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nooyurrsdey|3 years ago|reply
> The case against the EPA was brought by West Virginia on behalf of 18 other mostly Republican-led states and some of the nation's largest coal companies. > > They were challenging whether the agency has the power to regulate planet-warming emissions for state-wide power sectors or just individual power plants. > > These 19 states were worried their power sectors would be regulated and they would be forced to move away from using coal.
I'm losing hope that anything practical can be achieved because of idealistic nuance like this. We're missing the forest for the trees. Our goal should be the larger combating of climate change, but individual players like this have amazing power to put up resistance or obstruction to that goal which is a net loss for all of us.
[+] [-] hirundo|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fulafel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KingOfCoders|3 years ago|reply
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Coming
[+] [-] marmada|3 years ago|reply
Sure, maybe, in an ideal world we want congress to pass laws in the place of every single regulatory body. (This in and of itself is totally unclear to me).
However, the reality is that by getting rid of regulatory agencies we prevent important limits from being enforced.
I mean, read this part of the dissent: > Again, Section 111(d) tells EPA that when a pollutant—like carbon dioxide—is not regulated through other programs, EPA must undertake a further regulatory effort to control that substance’s emission from existing stationary sources.
There's a backstop in place to allow the EPA to prevent pollutants from fucking us up. Ideally it would be regulated through a formal program. It's not. Does that mean we should just get rid of all backstops & regress to the stone age?