The Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) has been busy this last session and has ruined the White House’s green agenda. This was a controversial SCOTUS session that supported the more conservative values held by most in agriculture.
I would say that the Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act are going to be scrutinized very closely going forward. The definition of waters of the U.S. (WOTUS) could be threatened. If SCOTUS is game to overturn Roe v. Wade, I don’t think they will have a problem looking at a bad environmental law that morphed into something it was never intended to be.
On the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week, there was a headline that said “Biden affirms his green agenda.” Since then, the Biden administration has been hellbent on picking on drillers in the Permian Basin about ozone levels. They have announced they want to cut back drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico, and they stopped a ship carrying Russian oil products destined for New Orleans. It’s almost like they are declaring war on the hydrocarbon business again while they ask other countries to produce more oil to solve our energy crisis.
The public is struggling with $5 gasoline, and truckers are paying $6 for diesel fuel. Inflation is high, supply chains are slow and folks are clearly not happy with the direction this administration is taking the economy. The Biden battle cry is “go green or go home.” This administration is senseless about what their citizens want. Polls show that 66 percent of respondents say the country is going in the wrong direction.
One thing about Donald Trump, whether you love him or hate him, is that he showed us what a wide-open economy looks like. He reduced more regulations than any other administration, but the Biden administration has shown us the opposite. Climate change is the only thing they can think about. Heck with the border situation and the fentanyl overdoses from bootleg painkillers. Right now, you need to rely on your family and friends; you can’t rely on the government.
SCOTUS ruled in the West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) appeal that EPA does not have the authority to regulate carbon emissions. The court ruled 6 to 3 that the Clean Air Act doesn’t give the agency broad authority to set industrywide standards for carbon emissions from power plants, stating that only Congress could authorize such rules.
The EPA was exceeding its authority by regulating power plants’ carbon emissions, which Congress never gave them explicit authority to do. I would imagine they could rule the same way for the WOTUS definition, which I’m sure will find its way to the SCOTUS again once the new rule is produced. WOTUS must feel like a bad dream for the court.
The justices referred to the “major questions doctrine,” which has been seldom used and is regarded as a living, breathing principle like the Chevron doctrine. It essentially says the federal bureaucracy is no longer allowed to impose programs of major “economic or political significance” on the country without “clear congressional authorization.” In other words, Congress needs to give agencies better direction when they make laws.
“The subject matter of the regulation here makes the Court’s intervention more troubling,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote. “Whatever else this Court may know about; it does not have a clue about how to address climate change. And let’s say the obvious: The stakes here are high. Yet the Court today prevents congressionally authorized agency action to curb power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions. The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decision-maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening.”
SCOTUS is now placing guardrails on Chevron to prevent lower courts from going off the constitutional road. Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch’s concurrence, joined by Samuel Alito, is especially helpful in lighting the way for lower courts grappling with when and how to apply the major questions doctrine.
First, he writes, the doctrine applies when “an agency claims the power to resolve a matter of great ‘political significance.’” Second, an agency “must point to clear congressional authorization when it seeks to regulate ‘a significant portion of the American economy.’” Third, it may apply when an agency seeks to intrude “into an area that is the particular domain of state law.”
Hopefully these rulings will get legislators back on the job of doing something instead of bickering about the politics. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. Now pray for more rain. — PETE CROW
