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The Supreme Court has been ruling on a whole lot of important cases lately, and this was one of them.
In a definitive win for the people over the bureaucracy, SCOTUS ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency lacked the authority to shove down regulations that Congress had not specifically authorized in the Clean Air Act.
Here is the opinion from John Roberts in West Virginia v. EPA: https://t.co/ret7VxSSpj. The three liberal justices dissent.
— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) June 30, 2022
This is a desperately needed correction by the Court that sends a message to the numerous executive agencies – the administrative state is not allowed to rule over the people by instituting more regulations without the approval of the legislature.
The Supreme Court rolled back the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants Thursday, dealing a massive blow to the Biden administration’s plans to fight climate change.”
The 6-3 decision overturned a lower court ruling that gave the federal agency virtually unlimited regulatory powers through the Clean Air Act.”
The case — West Virginia v. EPA — stems from the agency adopting the Affordable Clean Energy rule in 2019 to replace the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which was being repealed by the Trump administration after its implementation was blocked by a 2016 Supreme Court ruling.”
West Virginia and 18 other Republican-led states and coal companies appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court, arguing that the lower court had given the EPA too much authority to regulate emissions, even going above what Congress intended.”
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the states that “it is not plausible that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme.”
“A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body,” he added.”
And Roberts specifically cited that Congress has not pursued legislation like a cap-and-trade tax or a carbon tax, and the EPA appropriating that power to itself was a HUGE no-no. As others have pointed out, this echoes exactly what the court said in the CDC eviction moratorium case. The idea that a federal agency can simply make up administrative rules because THEY like the end results is completely unconstitutional.
The dissent, however, should make us thankful AGAIN (and again and again) for Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. Justice Elena Kagan wrote this dissent, and her reasoning for allowing the bureaucracy to regulate the people into the ground without any recourse is… quite something.
In dissent, Justice Kagan is like: Congress sucks, so executive agencies have to be able to do this. pic.twitter.com/giWlYCMTmF
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) June 30, 2022
The inefficiency of Congress is a feature, not a bug, and legislative gridlock often keeps extremely stupid and burdensome laws from being passed. Justice Kagan seems to think that this REQUIRES the administrative fiats from unelected bureaucrats who have no checks on them. “Let the Deep State rule!” is a very bad idea, but the left loves it. After all, they’ve controlled the Deep State for decades now. All I know is that I get an absolute shudder from reading the Sith-like reasoning of Kagan in that dissent.
Which means, naturally, that the left is howling about the end of the world.
The idea that an American federal agency was singlehandedly holding back the apocalypse sure is a thing. https://t.co/Tw171t4ILQ
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) June 30, 2022
Our planet is on fire, and this extremist Supreme Court has destroyed the federal government’s ability to fight back.
This radical Supreme Court is increasingly facing a legitimacy crisis, and we can't let them have the last word.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 30, 2022
Funny, last I checked, Elizabeth Warren was a member of Congress, as is AOC, who is also flipping out. Hmmm, I could have sworn that the Supreme Court just told the EPA that if they want a power, then Congress is the one who will have to give it to them! The reason that “Green New Deal” proponents like Warren and AOC are mad, though, is because they CAN’T get Congress to pass these extreme laws, so they wanted to do an end-run around Congress by simply letting the administrative state implement all their desires. And now SCOTUS just slapped that down. So all they want to do now is scream about how the world is going to end on Twitter.
Chalk this one up as a win for the American people, and a loss for the Deep State.
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Featured image: EPA building in Washington DC from Wikimedia Commons and Flickr, cropped, public domain
Cameron says: Now hoping the Remain in Mexico law gets upheld. The screeching will be deafening.
Scott says: And hoping that the ATF gets reigned (can we still use that word after the border patrol circus?) in, and their edicts about bump stocks, and “what is a gun” (from the same morons that can’t tell you what a woman is???), and all their bullshit proclamations get thrown out!
Well, they didn’t. It wasn’t a law, in any case – it was a policy EO (legitimate exercise of the immigration law, but not following it is also a legitimate, if stupid, exercise of immigration law).
Perhaps a good thing, though – make it clear to we conservatives that we have not “captured” the Supreme Court, we have only freed it from the Left. My opinion is that no ideology should have absolute control over non-elected portions of the government, in any case.
Voting and working in the primaries, and in November, is still of paramount importance. As is voting and working in every primary and general election to come. Local, State, and Federal. THAT is how to roll back the creeping tyranny.
[…] about Independence Day that no one asked for. You see, it’s been a couple of rough weeks for the left. They aren’t used to losing at the Supreme Court level. After all, the left has been […]
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