USA 2020 Elections: Thread

[grarpamp]

As with abortion, Biden and Democrats continue agressing
the US Constitution, making claims at law that don't exist,
etc... and they get smacked down, again and again and again...


In Landmark Ruling, Supreme Court Deals Massive Blow To Biden's
Climate Change Agenda

https://www.ft.com/content/b69f0a4d-a9d8-4a2d-b891-2f3c142f66ac

At the same time as it give the Biden admin a token victory by
overturning Trump's "remain in Mexico" rule, the US Supreme Court also
struck a major blow to Biden's fight against climate change, when in a
landmark ruling, the SCOTUS also curbed the ability of America’s top
environmental regulator to limit greenhouse gas emissions, siding with
coal miners and Republican-led states.

In a majority opinion authored by chief justice John Roberts, the
justices ruled that in the latest example of Democratic overreach, the
Environmental Protection Agency was not specifically authorized by
Congress to reduce carbon emissions when it was set up in 1970. The
ruling leaves the Biden administration dependent on passing
legislation if it wants to implement sweeping regulations to curb
emissions.

The opinion from the court's conservative majority said that “a
decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself,
or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that
representative body”. The justices added they doubted Congress
intended to delegate the question of “how much coal-based generation
there should be over the coming decades, to any administrative
agency”.

The dissenting opinion authored by justice Elena Kagan and joined by
the court’s other two liberal justices said the EPA had the authority
to regulate “stationary sources” of polluting substances that are
harmful to the public, adding that curbing the output of greenhouse
gas emissions was “a necessary part of any effective approach for
addressing climate change”. In other words, the usual green tripe that
has sent the country to the edge of a hyperinflationary commodity
disaster.

“This Court has obstructed EPA’s effort from the beginning,” Kagan
wrote. “The limits the majority now puts on EPA’s authority fly in the
face of the statute Congress wrote.”

As the FT reports, at the heart of the case is a disagreement over how
broadly the EPA should be allowed to interpret portions of the 1970
Clean Air Act, particularly the sections that direct the EPA to
develop emissions limitations for power plants.

    Dubbed West Virginia vs EPA, the case was brought by a host of
Republican attorneys-general and the coal industry. Their argument
centres on a regulation that never took effect: an Obama-era proposal
known as the Clean Power Plan, which would have mandated that power
plants make 32 per cent reductions in emissions below 2005 levels by
2030. The Supreme Court ordered that rule to be suspended in 2016.

    That rule was later torn up by the Trump administration in favor
of its Affordable Clean Energy rule, designed to support the coal
industry. The Trump administration’s regulation, however, was struck
down by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit last year.

    Challenging the lower court’s reversal of Trump’s rule at the
Supreme Court, West Virginia has argued that the Obama-era Clean Power
Plan relied on an overly broad interpretation of the Clean Air Act and
gave the EPA excessive and “industry transforming” power.

    West Virginia argued that the lower court’s interpretation of the
law granted the EPA “unbridled power” to issue significant rules that
would reshape the US electricity grid and decarbonise sectors of the
economy. It said the EPA should only have very limited authority to
regulate emissions inside “the fence line” of power plants, and cannot
apply broader industry-wide measures like carbon credit trading or
biomass co-firing.

Defending the case, Biden’s EPA has said that nothing in the Clean Air
Act makes a distinction between inside the fence line measures and
broader, industry-wide regulatory measures. It added that West
Virginia’s “real concern” was that the agency might introduce some
elements of Obama’s Clean Power Plan into a future rule. But the EPA
said that the Supreme Court is not authorised to issue an advisory
opinion on the types of measures a future rule could contain.

Dick Durbin, the Democratic whip in the Senate, predictably said the
decision was “a dangerous step backwards and threatens our air and our
planet”, adding it “sets a troubling precedent both for what it means
to protect public health and the authority regulatory agencies have to
protect public health”.

What he means is that the US may once again be on the path to becoming
self-sufficient in energy, and not peddling money to corrupt "green"
lobbies and interests.

The ruling by the court’s conservative majority is the latest in a
string of dramatic decisions that have challenged established legal
precedents, including the recent reversal of Roe vs Wade. Last week,
it also struck down a century-old New York state law requiring an
individual to show “proper cause” to carry a concealed gun in public,
deeming the statute unconstitutional. The court on Monday also ruled
in favour of a former high school coach dismissed for praying at
football games, fuelling the fraught debate on the separation of
church and state.