This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was first published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1429996
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1429996
If you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes.
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In other words, Roberts can go kick a rock.
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Let’s get to work. And you youngsters…we need energy from you on this. This is the world you will inherits from the John Robertses.
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With the caveats that (a) I have not read the entire text of West Virginia vs. EPA nor the dissenting opinions, (b) I’m no lawyer, and (c) the author of this guest opinion is a law professor, the “legal reasoning” presented here strikes me as exceptionally weak (like that of the current SCOTUS, which has made a mockery of and basically discredited the entire legal profession).
“But it doesn’t specifically grant the EPA new authority to regulate power plants.”
Why not? This is asserted/stated as fact without evidence.
" as groundbreaking as it is, the Inflation Reduction Act does not change the impact of the Supreme Court’s determination in West Virginia v. EPA that the EPA lacks the authority to require a systematic shift to cleaner sources of electricity generation."
again, an opinion asserted as fact without evidence or argument.
“But it falls short of granting EPA the authority to revive the generation shifting approach of the Clean Power Plan.”
says who? what specific legislative text or jurisprudence is cited in support of this argument?
" To get the bill through the sharply divided Congress, the Senate’s Democratic majority used a process called budget reconciliation. That process allows for legislation to pass with only a simple majority of the vote. But legislation passed that way must be closely tied to spending, revenue and the federal debt limit – it cannot set broad national policy."
Which part of the constitution says this? Oh wait. It doesn’t. That’s just a silly self-imposed Senate rule that actually subverts the intent of the framers of the constitution. If legislation is passed by congress and signed by the President, it seems to me that the procedure used to pass it is ultimately irrelevant to what the law is. Only the legislative text is relevant. This opinion doesn’t cite any specific part of the text of the IRA or of the SCOTUS opinion in WV vs. EPA in support of its argument. The entire argument essentially boils down to “because of the way this was passed (with a simple majority vote), any of its provisions construed as “setting broad national policy” cannot be interpreted as carrying any legal force, regardless of the legislative text or clear congressional intent”.
Of course this kind of BS process argument is kind of quaint and adorable in our brave new world of “the law is whatever we (the 6-3 fascist majority on SCOTUS) say it is, because fuck you, that’s why”.
Vote in Dem supermajorities in every election, expand/reform the courts, and let’s finally bury this tired right-wing legal sophistry and nonsense.
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This.
Unpack the Supreme Court.
(Because it’s already been “packed”.)
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To the point of impaction.
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Non-voting sleepyheads would do us in, in the final analysis.
The Right has a smaller n…but they are charged up with emotion and make a great deal of bluster and speechifying.
If anyone is to blame for being out-voted, it would have to be US.
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Awwwwwww!
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Ugh. The purpose of the Clean Air Act is clear on its face. The current Supreme Court seems to be making the whole issue seem smoggy by not going along with the sentiment that the Clean Air Act represented when it was passed five decades ago. The only thing that has changed since then is the level of greed that the current Supreme Court majority seems to feel should trump efforts to actually get us to better air quality. And the amount of money that’s permitted to pollute our airways by other obnoxious and pernicious nutty rulings, etc.
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