Milloy put up the ridiculous John Dingell, claiming offense that the Supreme Court would allow the EPA to control carbon dioxide under The Law he wrote so many years ago–the Clean Air Act.
I couldn’t resist expanding the discussion after initially making a comment. This deserves your attention. Dingell gives us a springboard on the EPA misconduct of the last 25 years or more.
I need to splain something to the idiot from Michigan, now in his 30th 2 year term.
He sure was there, 60 years in the house representing Michigan.
He wrote a law, the congress abdicated their responsibility and delegated the details to an executive agency, failed on their oversight and then when the Agency started to expand its activities and run rogue, they didn’t do anything.
Along the way the Supreme Court violated their oath and decided to find a way to avoid having to hammer an executive agency when they expand their authority and write laws based on JUNK SCIENCE. The case they hide behind is called Chevron for short, and says that agencies have discretion on interpretation of ambiguous statutory language, and all the EPA does is say the whole statute is ambiguous and we will say what it allows us to do–even conservative judges like Scalia, referencing his favorite phrase, judicial restraint, then fail to do their job and uphold the constitution to prevent overreach by the executive branch.
You know now why we are in such a mess. No one will stop the imperial and oligarchic executive branch. Congress doesn’t want to be in charge, they are like the House of Lords in UK. The judiciary doesn’t want any messy fights with executive agencies and allows inapproapriate delegation by the congress and refuses to stop the agencies on the restrained approach that allows them to interpret the statutes that they work under. Tyranny of fanatics, Imperial executive, neutered congress and “restrained” judiciary–Citizens on the rack and shut out, told what to by the oligarchs.
here is my comment to the post and video and another commenter’s point.
http://junkscience.com/2014/01/30/dingell-calls-supreme-court-stupid-for-allowing-epa-to-regulate-co2/
May I add to your comment, Mr. M?
This is a very apt statement made by a stupid man. The problems of the CAA could have been fixed by the Congress. They meant for the EPA to run rampant.
The “delegation” problem developed on many fronts because the congress was not willing to do their job, they created a runaway train in the exec agencies so they wouldn’t have to answer to the public on crazy regs that were burdensome to the citizens.
When presented with an opportunity to stop the agency runaway, the SCOTUS hid behind the Chevron decision:
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency’s interpretation of a statute which it administers. Chevron is the Court’s clearest articulation of the doctrine of “administrative deference,” to the point that the Court itself has used the phrase “Chevron deference” in more recent cases.[1]
What Chevron did was allow agency discretion across the board because for ambitious bureaucrats on the hunt, everything is a “statutory ambiguity” as a result the agency can do anything it damn well pleases and the SCOTUS and teh lesser courts sit on their hands.
Even if the agency action violates any common sense understanding of the language under the Administrative Procedure act of the words, arbitrary and capricious the Congress and the Courts let it ride rather than make a stink.
Normal people, even judges, know that arbitrary and capricious means without a solid reason and on a whim–so if the agency puts up bad science that couldn’t pass the smell test is that arbitrary and capricious–weeeeelllll no, because judges don’t want to strain their brains or take on agencies with armies of white coats. Industry doesn’t either.
Bad lawyering fails to make the case for bad science being arbitrary and capricious and then more junk science is piled on and more regulations are promulgated and everyone just stand there with their mouths open wondering how junk science determines agency regulatory regimes and policy making. For example claims that ambient air pollution killes hundreds of thousands of people every year in the US and millions on the planet. When they can’t show me one dead body caused by ambient air pollution. Not one.
Friend of John Galt — that wouldn’t work since a majority of the harmful regulations and rules are enforced as settlements from collusive lawsuits. While your proposed model does have merit in an environment without opportunistic behavior, what we have a long line of evidence pointing pit that those within the agencies found a way to meet their agenda which bypasses the Congress, the Judicial branch and even the regulatory procedures established for the Agencies themselves.
Now, as I do not believe in just saying “that’s a bad idea” and voting no, like our legislators appear to do, allow me to offer an amendment to your proposal which might close the loophole I listed above:
Amendment: Any judicial settlement offer requires ratification by the Congress, similar in structure to the ratification of treaties. Alternatively, simply require any agency settlement to take the form of a bill which must be voted on by the Congress before binding acceptance with a court.
And the EPA funds smart university researcher who sure can figure out how to get more money – make sure your claims support EPA policy. The EPA can then pick and choose which studies it will put forth. AND almost always the data used in those studies in not publicly available.
All “independent” federal administrative agencies are a violation of the the clear wording of the Constitution. The courts, however, (with progressive judges) decided to help the progressive movement toward “administrative experts” managing the country through regulation.
While my feeling is that administrative agencies are unconstitutional on the surface (the Constitution simply creates a limited number of cabinet posts, e.g. Sec of State and Sec of defense, etc.), however, the improper delegation of legislative duties can be “solved” by simply requiring that Independent Agencies submit all proposed regulations in the form of bills to be considered and passed by Congress (and signed by the President). This would put the responsibility squarely back on the elected representatives — who can be “unelected” as necessary. The current system makes a joke of congressional responsibility and leaves voters unable to hold their representatives fully responsible — as they are in any event.