"Article I, Section 8, Clause 7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;"
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
In other words, since the states have never expressly constitutionally given the feds the specific power to dictate INTRAstate policy for either environmental protection or energy, the constitutionally undefined EPA and Energy Departments shouldn’t exist unless Constitution is appropriately amended imo.
And even if the post-17th Amendment ratification feds weren’t regularly stealing state revenues by means of unconstitutional federal taxes, taxes that Congress cannot justify under its very limited constitutionally enumerated powers, then Texas would have its own cookie jar funds to rebuild Texas after a natural disaster without needing "federal" dollars based on unconstitutional taxes.
"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
H O W E V E R…
Texas wouldn’t need to tap its cookie jar since there is no constitutionally enumerated federal powers that can be used to stop Texas, or any states, from using its resources to stay warm and dry regardless of winter storm.
Sadly, it remains that a combination of politically correct, institutionally indoctrinated social Darwinism, along with post-17th Amendment ratification federal government overreach, has once again trumped 10th Amendment-protected state powers.