Put the REINS on EPA
EPA’s end-run around democracy — the agency’s hijacking of climate policy via the backdoor of Clean Air Act regulations — is meeting stiff resistance on Capitol Hill.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee has already held a hearing on the Energy Tax Prevention Act, which would overturn EPA’s Endangerment Rule and an assortment of related rules imposing Clean Air Act permitting requirements on power plants, refineries, and other emitters of greenhouse gases. Passing the bill — sponsored by Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI), and Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) — is reportedly a top priority of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) and Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) have also introduced the “Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act.” This even stronger legislation would prohibit all agencies from “legislating’”climate policy under any existing statute, none of which was ever designed or intended for that purpose.
Not so long ago cap-and-trade advocates, such as Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), warned that if Congress did not enact “comprehensive energy and climate legislation,” opponents would end up with something they’d like even less — a cascade of Clean Air Act climate regulations promulgated by EPA. Cap-and-traders clearly implied that using the Act as a framework for climate policy would be worse for business — less efficient, less predictable, and potentially more costly. They tried to scare industry, Republicans, and coal-state Democrats into supporting cap-and-trade as a lesser evil.
But this just means that if EPA’s climate regulations were put to a vote, they’d have even less chance of passing in the 112th Congress than cap-and-trade did in the 111th Congress. It also means that non-elected bureaucrats are “enacting” an economically riskier version of the same agenda that Congress recently rejected.
As noted, Congress may put the kibosh on EPA’s power grab. But things should never have gotten to the point where the friends of affordable energy on Capitol Hill have to hold hearings, build coalitions, and endure vicious calumny just to stop EPA from implementing policies Congress never voted on or approved.
The Rot Runs Deep
EPA’s power grab is, alas, only the most egregious example of a more pervasive disorder undermining our Constitution and endangering our prosperity.
Americans live under a regime of regulation without representation. In the modern regulatory state, elected officials enact broad regulatory statutes, such as the Clean Air Act, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, or the Telecommunications Act. However, Congress and the president then delegate to non-elected officials the tasks not only of developing and proposing but also of enacting the implementing rules.
Administrative agencies such as EPA end up wielding powers that the Constitution reserves to Congress. Article I, Sec. 1 of the Constitution vests “all legislative powers” in the Congress of the United States, and Article I, Sec. 8 gives to Congress the power to lay and collect taxes. Agencies have no constitutional authority to make law or raise taxes. Yet they issue thousands of regulations each year, all having the force and effect of law, and many functioning as implicit taxes that increase the cost of goods and services.
If asked whether bureaucrats should have the power to make laws and raise taxes, most Americans would unhesitatingly say no — and with good reason. In the political theory underpinning the U.S. Constitution, governments “derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This means that all powers — legislative, executive, and judicial — originate with the people, and legitimate government arises from a compact whereby the people agree to delegate certain powers to certain offices or institutions. This means officials are the stewards, not the owners, of power. Just as legislatures have no right to seize powers the people have delegated to the executive, so they also have no right to transfer to the executive branch powers that the people have delegated to them.
John Locke, an English philosopher admired by Jefferson and many other Founders, succinctly explained what later came to be called the non-delegation doctrine:
The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands, for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it on to others.
Similarly, the Supreme Court, in the 1892 case of Field v. Clark, declared:
That Congress cannot delegate legislative power to the President is a principle universally recognized as vital to the integrity and maintenance of a system of government ordained by the Constitution.
All I ask is that they let me deal with Lisa Jackson…I’ll ‘put the bit’ to her
Robbins,
You put the bit on one eco-nazi and two will rise to take their place. They’re like stinking cock-a-roaches.
The arrogance of these un-elected bureaucrats is mind-boggling. Please, America, let’s rein in the EPA. That would be a good start, anyway. Then on to the Departments of Education and Energy.
Arrogance has nothing to do with it. The EPA got marching orders from Obama and powerful Democrat members of Congress.
Jarmo,
I was referring specifically to Lisa Jackson. If you don’t believe she’s an arrogant progressive elitist you best be posting your responses over at the Huff or Kos where they belong.
Are you an EPA employee by chance???
While they get some marching orders from Obama’s appointee, don’t kid yourself in saying they are not arrogant. Ultimately these folks must justify their existence in order to continue. They have a reason to show business who’s boss! Arrogance is baked into the cake of bureaucratic government.
Why limit ourselves to one at a time as O’Sputnik said “We do big things”
Abolish the EPA, Dept of Energy and Education, HHS, HUD, Commerce, Transportation and Labor most of the Depts. of Agriculture and Interior, Abolish the FCC, Agency for International Development, All State websites and homepages, COPS, all agencies whose title starts with the word Community, Corporation for National and Community Service, Commissions of Fine Arts, on Civil Rights, Denali Commission, Domestic Policy Council, Endangered Species Committee, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, EOIR, OESE, EEOC, Export-Import Bank, Any board or Agency with the name Fulbright in it, Federal Reserve System, Repeal Title VII of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, abolish Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Food and Nutrition Service, U.S. Institute for Peace and Sell the Kennedy Center, Abolish the Legal Services Corporation, Bureau of Land Management, Marine Mammal Commission, Morris K Udall Foundation, Multifamily Housing Office, Millennium Challenge Corporation, Merit Systems Protection Board, National Institute of Justice, National Mediation Board, NLRB, NEC, National Council on Disability, NEH, Office of Compliance, Open World Leadership Center, Rural Housing Service.
Just a little something I threw together the other day. Obviously there is room for lots of other cuts.
By G-d! You took the words right out of my notes. Couldn’t agree more. To short circuit the chronic intrusiveness of Government you have to reduce its SIZE; it can’t operate its octopus like operation without its numerically bloated minions.
Why do you think the Obamster chucked 80% of the nearly 800 billion in ‘stimulus’ money into supporting public service jobs in Democratic urban centers, state and federal governments? It was to maintain and enlarge those bureaucracies, and that sector only!
Sadly, this type of action by the Administration is not unusual. Different situation but different attitude – the Admins declaration not to defend the Defense of Marriage Act because they deem it unconstitutional. I have written a piece on my blog about this. If yo are interested-
http://straightthinker.blogspot.com/2011/02/emperor-and-bigot.html
Mercer Tyson StraightThinker.com
Defund the EPA and stop this nonsense now!
I agree with you about defunding the EPA. If the Republicans don’t act soon, they will see a third party movement destroy their party. The EPA isn’t the only government organization that needs to be dealt with. They are running out of time. I ask this question-Is the Republican party just another government bureaucracy?
Nixon is getting his revenge from beyond the grave.
Americans have to decide once and for all who actually makes the laws in this country. Is it Congress, as mandated in the Constitution, or is it the President through “Executive Orders,” or unelected presidential “czars,” or Federal Agencies who’s bureaucrats have not been elected by anybody? This is the time for Congress to put an end to all of that. And Federal agencies should NOT be allowed to create their own Federal laws, period. This is insane. How would Americans like it if the FBI decided to make up its own criminal laws, especially ones that determined how you could question a suspect? I’m sure the ACLU would just be “fine” with that, right? Nobody elected the members of the EPA and it is a horrific overreach for them to create laws that will affect the whole country. The time to stop this is now, before the divisions in this country between left and right gets even worse than they are now (if that’s even possible).
Why go thru all this BS, I say force the Senate to go along with Closing them down completely and start out with a new agency that has the absolute minimum Pencil Pusher in DC with the rest of the regulating authority relegated back to each of the 57 States that will also encompass the DNR and other Wildlife agencies with the EPA and down size and rid ourselves of all these extra agencies, Departments that are no longer warranted nor do the People want to see continue on with the Rape pf American Tax Payer’s Like Rand Paul says he’s all for shutting these departments down, with the DOE, Doe, and the EPA and several others.
Marlo Lewis: Excellent piece, and I second Libertyship46′s comments. I disagree with you on one point, though. It is when you say: “It is also obvious that Congress cannot review all the thousands of rules that scores of agencies promulgate each year.” There are two problems with that. It is a slippery slope to go from minor changes to major changes. Where do you draw the line?
Secondly, the Constitution gives the Congress the power to legislate as follows (Art. I, Sect. 8): “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the … general Welfare of the United States.” So before any change is made to a rule or regulation, Congress must judge whether the changes increases the general welfare of the United States. It is not the Executive’s role to make that judgment. Finally, if Congress is going to bombard us the with a ‘gazillion’ rules, it should have to bear the burden of approving every minor change to those rules. It might think twice about the burden it is putting on us if it itself gets so burdened that it can never go home.
Great article cause, for EPA, it’s nothing more than what you said about them, “it’s a power grab”. Sen. James Inhofe is from my state & I know he’s been on the EPA case for years. He just needed more support to bring in the EPA & he now has it.
There’s a new thriller just out about a small town that takes a stand against the EPA & ends up the citizens start the 2nd American Revolution. It’s so real cause it’s just average citizens fighting EPA who is trying to shutdown their town’s water plant. I recommend it & has a surprise ending.
http://www.booksbyoliver.com
EPA is trying to dominate all of America since the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act back in the ’70′s. Great article!
This article is right on – EPA is but one problem agency ruling by fiat – we need to REIN in Interior, OSHA, HUD, et cetera, ad infinitum!
Sign the REINS petition at reins.americantradition.org THEN go “like” the REINS facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/pages/REINS-Act-Tell-Obama-No-Major-Regs-Without-Congressional-Approval/200856763264740
The constitutionality of regulation by fiat is more in line with royality that a democratic republic. The legislature regulates and the executive branch enforces and the judicial determines constitutional validity. The EPA and other executive departments clearly displace abuse of executive power.
The EPA is out of control and is imposing a Left wing agenda through regulation. They are seizing the permit authority in Texas, stopping good paying jobs in Alaska, trying to regulate ranch dust, and all this is going to hurt the middle class.
http://www.bluecollarphilosophy.com/2011/02/obama-administration-does-not-want-the-epa-to-stop-over-regulating-your-life.html
The environmental policy of the Democrats is in direct conflict with their claim to be concerned about the middle class. Everything the EPA does with the full support of President Obama harms the middle class.
Be careful, “Marlo.” A whole lot of us are conservative AND conservationist. You can mess with all the rest of it, but leave the land alone. The land is sacred, and when I hear city bozos dissing the forests and the animals that have made this continent so blessed for so long, I get seriously pissed. And make no mistake: there are a lot of us out here.
The EPA is just one tentacle of the monster that has changed us from a nation of laws into a nation of presidential fiat. Welcome to the new Amerika, more like the despotic 3rd world than the republic where it all started. The shifting of power to the president over decades has finally culminated in the end of the republic. We did what the Romans did and traded freedom/personal responsibility for false security and hand-outs.
As to the environment, the nations waterways, air pollution and lands were cleaned up prior to the Nixon-created EPA. The petroleum industry is another example, where Texas long ago established standards and have enforced them to prevent destruction of the land and aquifers. Radical environmentalism is not about sustaining the environment, it is about world government.
I’ve got news for you… “the agency’s hijacking of climate policy via the backdoor of Clean Air Act regulations” is not some random example of violating representative democracy. These agencies were allowed via sloppy logic, using a loophole of one-step-removed indirection, because our so-called elected officials in Congress were too lazy to deal directly with writing good, detailed, limited laws. Instead, they have foisted their legal responsibility over to unelected, uncontrollable regulatory agencies.
These agencies have unlimited reach. The result of such irresponsibility is now before us… we live in a tyranny at the pleasure of unelected bureaucrats who saddle individual businesses and citizens with mountains of rules and regulations. We now live in a kakistocracy, in which we unknowingly violate at least one such regulation every day, and only through the grace of imperfect governmental oversight do we get away with it from the eye of whatever regulatory body holds power. And if our inadvertent action rises to the level of scrutiny and does not meet the approval of the politically correct, then our lives will be torn apart by government. Do you doubt what I say? Every day there are examples in the media, but they are presented as egregious outliers instead of the normative situation that is really in extent.
The whole concept of regulatory agencies is anathema to our Constitution, and should be abolished immediately. Do you think otherwise? Do you think they represent democracy in action? Do you think this is a true representative democracy, a true republic? If you do not yet feel like staging a revolution, then it is simply because you are the proverbial frog in the pot that has its temperature raised little by little. Just when do you think you will wake up and actually do something?
The country got along just fine before Tricky Dick created this foul monster. Let the states take care of their own backyard. Get rid of this abomination.
Members of the EPA and their intellectual, elite supporters are most likely sitting around now, above the fray as it were, looking down on the scurrying, scuffling little piss ants, that would be everyone else, disturbed by their inability to comprehend that these “noble environmental benefactors” are immersed in the highest of all pursuits, “saving the planet” which we are assured, on an almost daily basis, is in grave danger, about to self destruct because of irresponsible, selfish, greedy, human activity, especially of the American Capitalist variety. Doomsday scenarios really grab people’s attention and raise a lot more cash needed to fund “impartial, apolitical” research.
The road to perdition is paved with good intentions.
The Environmental activist Genie needs to be put back in its bottle, the ivory towers, the halls of academia, where its most fervent practitioners can all commiserate with each other about the abject ignorance and decadence of the human species that they’re appalled and loathe to admit they’re a part of. The “piss ants” could even provide them with a lifetime supply of face masks, food stamps for organic foods, bottled water and unbleached toilet paper. It’d be a lot cheaper than implementing their lofty, esoteric, budget busting, regulations that have brought us to the sorry ass state America is currently in; a looming energy crisis resulting from a decades long assault on the American coal, oil, gas and nuclear industries and the resulting unholy alliance with nations dedicated and determined to ultimately destroy us once our economic engine sputters and stalls and can no longer finance their quest for world domination, the Grand Jihad.
In the Environmentalist’s self declared war on the industrial world it apparently has never occurred to them that they were indulged in killing the proverbial goose that feathers their nest or, even more mysterious, why they never thought to apply their considerable intellect and scientific acumen to a collaborative effort with the industry that so offends their Mother Earth centered sensibilities. Don’t kill the damn goose, help it survive, prosper and clean up after itself.
Environmental concerns must be approached and resolved with due consideration given to ALL the ramifications surrounding the implementation of policy. No one wants polluted air and water but solutions have to be found that do not impede industrial growth or threaten national security. Clean air and water will be of little consolation if we all end up struggling to survive in a green wasteland.
Governance by bureaucracy has to happen for the UN and the EU to swallow up the world and create a global government. They are attempting to do it just through such a route. The EPA reports to the UN all carbon emissions, strategies etc.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/policy/international_unfccc.html
Therefore any legislation attached to the UN Framework on Climate Change will be enacted in the US. This is how the UN works. Bureaucracies end up cooperating with their bureaucracy, then they standardize their operating procedures and before you know it, they don’t listen to national governments anymore. The Lisbon Treaty is turning out to be such an animal with a self-amending formula so there is no need to go back to national governments to approve any changes.
Call the courthouse and have these news editors arrested for leading us to a false war against climate variation.
Pollution is REAL, unstoppable warming from CO2 “was” NOT and REAL planet lovers are happy and relieved the crisis was averted.
If a climate crisis was real, we would be talking about it, not debating it’s existence AFTER 25 YEARS OF IPCC WARNINGS!
Scientists have families too. Why are the scientists not marching in the streets and screaming crisis on Oprah and CNN?
Why do the thousands of consensus scientists always out number the protesters?
Why did Obama not say “climate change” or “EPA” in his state of the union in Feb.2011?
The scientists say we humans are contributing less CO2 thanks to the world economy yet global CO2 levels continue to rise? Just like the “scientists” who produced cruise missiles, cancer causing chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, cluster bombs, strip mining technology, Y2K, Y2Kyoto, deep sea drilling technology and now climate change.
Do you believe the death warrant for the planet enough to look your very own children in the eyes and tell them in vague and deceptive language that they will die an unspeakable CO2 death?
Doesn’t the fact that climate science is so political, show that it’s ……political?
If you still think voters will vote yes to taxing the air to make the weather colder, you are the new denier.
System change, not climate change
To me, it seems the only “sustainable” lifestyle the greens will allow is that we (the masses) all live like the Amish.