Supreme Court Rules against EPA having regulation of green house emissions

[Belsnickel]

(07-03-2022, 11:33 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Exactly. Despite the usual histrionics, what the Supreme Court ruled was that a government agency does not have the authority to make regulations with such a broad effect on the countries economy. The said this has to be done by the legislature, or at the very least, the legislature has to give that authority to the agency. Not sure how that is some horrible decision. It's basically the same as saying Buttigieg can't come out tomorrow and say you can't drive a vehicle on the highway that gets less that 75 mpg. That would basically shut the country down, and a federal agency does nor should it have that kind of power without the people being affected having a vote. 

I typically agree, but this comes with problems.

First, Congress is ineffective. We all know this. They shit the bed every opportunity they get and would rather focus on wedge issues than actually doing their job.

Second, they are ignorant. There has been a brain drain going on for the past 50ish years where the number of staffers in the Capitol has been decreasing as legislators send them to their home offices to deal with constituent services. Sounds great, right? Well, while it used to be that legislators had staffers that would specialize in various topics to help guide them in their decision making since most of them don't know shit about most of the topics they have to vote on and don't have nearly enough time to research it. So what is happening now? Lobbyists are the ones feeding the information to the legislators and in some cases even writing the legislation. We are abdicating the responsibility of regulation to the industries being regulated.

Third, and last, the idea behind an effective bureaucracy is one that is given limited rule-making authority overseen by elected officials so that they can more effectively and efficiently deal with the problems that arise. Now, the legislature absolutely needs to engage in one of their most important functions: oversight of the executive branch. This includes making sure bureaucratic rule-making is not running roughshod all over the democratic processes. But that is something that would again be solved by a legislature that actually did something.

Anyway, Congressional reform is what is needed, absolutely agree. We just need to make sure we know into whose hands we are entrusting this authority.