“Congress cannot surrender it’s law-making power to ANYONE without passing an amendment stating such. “
I was arguing from the perspective of an EPA legal team. The reason I can is that Congress has passed laws and then delegated the implementation to the EPA, which is done by policies, rules and regulations. Since people can be arrested and prosecuted and go to jail for violating those regulations I would argue they have the force of law.
In essence, the EPA has become another branch of government, at least, I would argue, the equal of Congress. But none of them are elected. They are the deep state.