Posted on 03/03/2016 8:05:41 AM PST by xzins
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts rejected a plea Thursday to block a contentious air pollution rule for power plants, in a big victory for the Obama administration.
Roberts’s order came despite his court’s 5-4 decision last year ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) regulation, known as mercury and air toxics standards, is illegal.
Michigan led a group of 20 states last month, empowered by the Supreme Court’s recent unprecedented decision to halt the EPA’s climate change rule for power plants, in asking the court to live up to its ruling last year and block the regulation’s enforcement. “Unless this court stays or enjoins further operation of the Mercury and Air Toxics rule, this court’s recent decision in Michigan v. EPA will be thwarted,” the states wrote in a Feb. 23 filing with the court.
“A stay or injunction is appropriate because this court has already held that the finding on which the rule rests in unlawful and beyond EPA’s statutory authority.”
The EPA responded that no judicial stay is necessary, since it’s working to fix the problem the court identified by next month, and the states would not suffer irreparable harm in that time.
“The requested stay would harm the public interest by undermining reliance interests and the public health and environmental benefits associated with the rule,” the government said. “The application lacks merit and should be denied.”
Roberts acted swiftly, waiting less than a day after the EPA’s response brief to side with the Obama administration. He acted unilaterally, electing to reject the request himself rather than take it to the full court, which may have led to a 4-4 split following Justice Antonin Scalia’s death.
The court ruled last June that the EPA should have conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the regulation before it even decided to start writing it. The agency did so as part of the regulatory process, but the justices said that was not sufficient.
But the Supreme Court did not overturn the rule at the time, and the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in December that the EPA could keep enforcing it.
Environmental groups were very pleased with Roberts’s decision.
And therein lies the rub - and a central tenant missed by the majority of the passionate but woefully ignorant posters on this forum - that it is the Congress whose duty is to reign in these rogue agencies ostensibly operating under the Executive's authority. The USSC simply rules on the constitutionality of legislation from the Congress, or the "merits" of the argument concerning any particular law in question.
If the electorate doesn't like the position of the court on any given law, then they should be petitioning the Congress to change the law. Since Congress has been so unresponsive to the wishes of the American electorate for more than a generation now, it simply underscores how critical this current election cycle is whereby we must begin wrestling control away from the ruling political class and placing it back into the hands of the people.
Perhaps he can be removed as Chief Justice?
"It is obvious now that when a case is really important
to the Marxist American haters running the country,
Roberts will save their bacon."
At a time when no one knew what Roberts would do in the future.
That is NO EXCUSE for Cruz HE clerked for this guy HE KNEW!!!!!
Perhaps a few of us will live long enough to find out just what John Roberts thought so important to cover up that he sold his integrity. The fact that he is owned is obvious.
i agree. it started with obamacare. obama has something on him
There is NO EXCUSE for what Trump did. HE donated to Harry Reid and Pelosi. HE KNEW!!!!!
Obviously that pillow hated CO2. Now we have proof of motive.
Roberts is a huge disappointment.
Hey’s homosexual. The Dems have him by the short hairs on all the big issues.
Oh, Good God. Crawl into the nearest hole.
You aren’t bright enough to see the post I was answering.
Article V Convention of States.
Item I: States can overturn SCOTUS rulings with 2/3 support.
Go back to Moms basement. Noob.
Learn how to read.
Or are you too spastic to do that?
I won’t drag this conversation out because it’s of little import. All I’ll say is that when it comes to logic, you are one of the most logical and level-headed posters in the religion forum. Somehow when it comes to politics, you develop a fawning sycophancy over a mere mortal, resulting in a tendency to condemn another mere mortal over, for example, failure to predict the future based solely on past performance.
I don’t see Trump as evil nor Cruz as God. Both Dugout Don and the Canadian-born Cuban (who I believe to be an NBC) are both mortals with human strengths and weaknesses.
Remember - Reagan gave us O’Connor, who turned out to be a lemon (some even predicted that). Hardly anyone predicted that with Roberts (maybe you can cite someone who did).
What is guaranteed is that a President Trump will most certainly appoint a lemon and will most definitely disappoint you. A President Cruz could well also do the same. That’s life.
Folks say Roberts is a fag.
I FIRMLY believe GW Bush is a homo in the style of Brokeback Mountain. Yes, Bush 43 is a homo.
Come, now. Does anyone think ANYTHING in D.C. isn’t exempted from 99%+ of the ‘laws’ they pass for the peasants?
One only needed a refresher by watching the ‘small biz’ exemption Congress received from O’Care.
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