Posted on 12/27/2010 12:41:21 PM PST by SeekAndFind
And so it begins, and on the most fertile red-state territory in the nation. Texas, which got four more seats in the House through the 2010 Census reapportionment, has had its air-quality rules superceded by the EPA as part of its aggressive new action on carbon emissions. Governor Rick Perry promises a fight:
The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday effectively declared Texas unfit to regulate its owngreenhouse gas emissions and took over carbon dioxide permitting of any new or expanding industrial facilities starting Jan. 2.
The EPA also set up a framework for regulating greenhouse gas emissions in seven other states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Oregon and Wyoming. In addition, the agency set a timetable on establishing regulated levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
The action will give the EPA permitting authority over refineries, power plants and cement facilities in Texas, the agency said, but will not affect small pollution source facilities, such as restaurants and farms.
Well, perhaps not directly, but the increase in energy prices and shortages created by the EPA imposition of what will essentially be carbon taxes will impact businesses throughout the Texas economy, as well as consumers who ultimately pay the costs of the regulatory regime. Rick Perry has signaled a court fight to stop the EPA and the Obama administration:
Texas is the only state that has refused to implement the new rules. President Barack Obama is pressing ahead with the regulations after Congress failed to pass legislation capping carbon emissions. Perry, a Republican, calls the rules overreaching by the federal government that will cripple his state’s economy.
“The EPA’s misguided plan paints a huge target on the backs of Texas agriculture and energy producers by implementing unnecessary, burdensome mandates on our state’s energy sector, threatening hundreds of thousands of Texas jobs and imposing increased living costs on Texas families,” Katherine Cesinger, a Perry spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement.
The timing is certainly interesting. The EPA made this move two days before Christmas, when most people had stopped paying attention to political news. The EPA’s move thus got missed by most of the national media, even though it demonstrates well the Obama strategy in 2011 to win through regulation what it could not win through legislation. And by focusing on Texas, where Republicans have a chance to redistrict with practically no interference from Democrats, the move will certainly incentivize the GOP to limit as much as possible the representation of Democrats in their Congressional delegation as the Republican-controlled House attempts to stymie the EPA’s regulatory innovation.
This also will vault Rick Perry to the highest level of national politics, even as he continues to insist that he won’t run for President. With a third term as governor in hand and a perfect political battle opening in front of him, though, the opportunity may be too much to resist for a man who could possibly unite conservatives and the GOP for a big run against a stumbling Obama in 2012.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday effectively declared Texas unfit to regulate its own greenhouse gas emissions and took over carbon dioxide permitting of any new or expanding industrial facilities starting Jan. 2.
What can you do? Pronounce them unfit right back and continue to operate the state permitting process! The EPA is on thin political ground here and the more Washington overreaches, the more people will come to believe they've crossed the line, so (a) don't worry too much about it, and (b) consider trying to goad them into doing something that will REALLY piss people off.
What would probably happen in practice is that the EPA would sue the state and the feds would withhold "federal grant money". So then Texas instructs state employers to remit their federal tax withholding payments to them instead of directly to the feds, deducts the amount of "federal money" improperly being withheld, and sends the rest on to Washington.
But the original question was what to do if you lose in court. Which brings us to the bizarre paradox of state vs. federal jurisprudence. Having a federal court decide cases pitting the feds against states or groups of states is a ludicrous idea, similar to having federal courts rule on Constitutionality of legislation. Have you ever been interviewed for jury duty? They'll exclude you if you know some of the parties, even one of the lawyers or the judge. So why states view as binding a ruling where they lose to the feds in a federal court is beyond me, but certainly not a state of affairs that can persist indefinitely.
But what's the alternative? you may ask. As bad as the feds are, we certainly don't want to subject ourselves to the whim of some world court, staffed by tyrants and imbeciles, so what's to be done? Well, how about issues like this being heard before a panel of state jurists from states not involved in the immediate dispute. They'd be impartial on the merits of a given case, except for a bias to preserve state power, which is exactly what you want. The bias would be in favor of the state unless they were doing something completely egregious, which is perfect.
You're older than you look. And I say this never having seen you.
Who told you secession was unConstitutional? Lincoln did, but he couldn't read. How could the founding fathers, with a straight face, rule out secession when they had done so themselves less than two decades earlier?
You've cut right to the heart of the matter right there. The feds think (and correctly so far) that they can blackmail states to do things corrosive to the liberties of their citizens using money remitted by the citizens of that very state and other states. If the feds have money left over after discharging their proper duties to bribe states to do things "voluntarily" that means that they have received that many dollars too much in federal taxes and that that amount should be withheld from them in the future. So the state just keeps that amount out of the federal tax remittances of employers and other taxpayers in their state. Problem solved (or at least moved to a more forthright arena)
But there's more to it than that. If the feds think they can bribe our state legislative employees to do bad stuff to us with our own money, choosing between the money and the tyranny is playing the game as they've defined it. It's our money. We have the right to keep the money AND decline the tyranny at the same time.
How do you propose to stop them? Show up with an army division?
Those officers swore no oaths of loyalty to any federal officials. It depends upon their perception of the Constitutionality of the federal actions, which they DID swear an oath to.
I believe “Jackson” had the best answer............
Shoot, if you do all that stuff, there IS no “take it from there”. You’ve completed all legislation forevermore.
Maybe the numbers you saw were absolute numbers rather than percentages like in this ranking. California has the largest population, so even with a little lower enlistment percentage will still end up sending a large number.
Seriously? I thought that was pretty much the consensus.
That’s been my opinion for quite a few years and it has cost me a lot of FR friends. Telling the truth about the man or Laura was not what they wanted to hear.
What was the outcome? I assume they’re still running.
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