Posted on 06/30/2022 8:48:40 AM PDT by karpov
The Supreme Court on Thursday curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s powers to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants, in a decision that could limit the authority of government agencies to address major policy questions without congressional approval.
Elaborating on earlier decisions, the high court said federal agencies need explicit authorization from Congress to decide issues of major economic and political significance, drawing on a principle known as the “major questions doctrine.”
In his decision for the 6-3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said Congress never gave the EPA the authority to change the methods a power plant uses—regulations known as “generation shifting” requirements.
Chief Justice Roberts said that forcing a nationwide transition away from coal may be a “sensible” idea, but the EPA cannot do so without a clear authority from Congress.
“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” the chief justice wrote, adding that the “EPA claimed to discover an unheralded power representing a transformative expansion of its regulatory authority in the vague language of a long-extant, but rarely used, statute.”
The chief justice’s opinion was joined by the court’s conservatives, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Justice Gorsuch wrote a concurring opinion that was joined by Justice Alito.
Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent on behalf of herself, Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Justice Stephen Breyer, whose retirement becomes effective on Thursday.
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the importance of the ruling cannot be overstated.
“Today, the Supreme Court has taken a major step to restore representative government and require legislators, not bureaucrats, to make the major policy decisions affecting the lives of Americans,” the group’s executive vice president, Derrick Morgan, said
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
YES!!!
The answer to that question depends expressly on whatever powers have actually been conferred to the CDC via statutory law... but if I were a Constitutional lawyer, I'd certainly be checking.
Congress intentionally avoids (evades) doing the hard work of defining the details of how laws are to be implemented.
—
Indeed. Congress has sloughed off any responsibility for anything other than figuring out how to win the next election.
Bigger yet would be overturning Wickard v Filburn. That abomination allowed the feds to have authority over pretty much anything in the country, gutting the 10th Amendment. But I will take this (and Bruen)…it has been a good week.
Yes, THAT is why this is such a YUUUUGE decision. Same reasoning applies to all over-reaching, unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies.
another “1970xs boondoggle” crushed!!
You can now eliminate half of the EPA and substantially change it’s charter.
Hopefully a conservative buys his house when he’s gone.
We need to kill the regulatory state.
Sure, but that would require a change of Congress in order to get...the...votes... Oh. That's why they're panicking.
Restore the Constitution!Size DC!
Close entire Rogue/Un-Constitutional Departments, including their SWAT Teams.
Now how about a ruling to get the f’n corn out of gasoline ?!
“No longer may unelected bureaucrats impose their will upon the citizenry absent the law making authority of Congress!”
Prior to his confirmation, Justice Gorsuch was reported to be a champion of rolling back the excesses of the Administrative State- unelected bureaucrats exercising lawmaking power.
Thanks again, President Trump!
This was not originally the dynamic. The EPA was originally strong organization of engineers and scientists tasked to Identify problems and solutions. Practical solutions were identified. Information disseminated via detailed publications containing details needed for process design and cost estimating.
I used EPA manuals published in the 1970s into 1990s as a starting point for many solutions. However, without updating these tools he came increasingly obsolete and eventually had to completely retire them. By the 2000s, the EPA had fully completed fully morphing into lawyers and paper pushers. Tech people were few in number and sort of caged up.
One time, I had a tech question went to an EPA regional office to search their library for information. It was a strange black hole on one narrow area that happened to be critical to something I was working on at the time. None of the regional “experts” could answer my “why” question and referred me to DC.
I contacted DC and got the same same dumb response. I was persistent and finally found someone in DC that was able to get me in contact with the actual scientist that put the tech info criteria together and answer my questions. Interesting telephone call. The scientist was very closely caged. All this effort got charged to the client. Probably towards $5K in billable hours to get to that 15 minute phone call.
Biden and the Executive Branch are one in the same. So you could argue that Biden lacks authority to make major decisions unilaterally as well re: oil vs. electricity as “favored” energy source. Goodbye green new deal.
Telling my BIL the same thing an hour ago.
The Imperial Congress: Crisis in the Separation of Powers
by Gordon S. Jones (Editor)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3819691-the-imperial-congress
Could this include the CDC/Fauci and their insane mandates?
Now if somebody will just bring a case seeking to overturn Wickard....
Oh how I agree. This country for decades has had the thumb of unelected bureaucrats penning laws WITHOUT the authority to do so. These 20 million bureaucrats allow Congress to sit back and pad their pockets until they retire to a cushy lobbyist job.
Big win but I have been disappointed before.
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