For years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which has no legal right to exist, has far overstepped its usurped authority, forcing regulations on companies without the approval of Congress; they have become a de facto lawmaking body. Although lawsuits have stopped some of these unconstitutional actions, these abuses have continued.
Finally, Administrator Lee Zeldin stepped in to stop this misuse of power:
Environmental Protection Administrator Lee Zeldin announced plans to overturn the agency’s 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ that declared greenhouse gases a threat to human health and welfare. This landmark reversal would undercut the regulatory foundation for the Biden administration’s sweeping climate agenda and represents a significant step toward reining in overreach by federal agencies that have long weaponized climate science to push costly, job-killing regulations.
It’s taken a few years to restrain the EPA and its power. In the 2022 case West Virginia v. EPA, the SCOTUS established some clarity between the authority of the agency and the power of Congress:
Congress did not grant the Environmental Protection Agency in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan.
Under the ‘major questions doctrine,’ there are ‘extraordinary cases’ in which the ‘history and the breadth of the authority that [the agency] has asserted,’ and the ‘economic and political significance’ of that assertion, provide a ‘reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress’ meant to confer such authority. This is one such case, so the EPA must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the authority it claims. It cannot do so.
This ruling was a major step in setting limits on the administrative state in general, and on the EPA in particular.
Also in 2022, SCOTUS revisited the “Chevron deference,” which had permitted an agency to determine the details of vague legislation passed by Congress.
Chevron deference, Roberts explained in his opinion for the court on Friday, is inconsistent with the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that sets out the procedures that federal agencies must follow as well as instructions for courts to review actions by those agencies. The APA, Roberts noted, directs courts to ‘decide legal questions by applying their own judgment’ and therefore ‘makes clear that agency interpretations of statutes — like agency interpretations of the Constitution — are not entitled to deference. Under the APA,’ Roberts concluded, ‘it thus remains the responsibility of the court to decide whether the law means what the agency says.’
[snip]
Justice Clarence Thomas penned a brief concurring opinion in which he emphasized that the Chevron doctrine was inconsistent not only with the Administrative Procedure Act but also with the Constitution’s division of power among the three branches of government. The Chevron doctrine, he argued, requires judges to give up their constitutional power to exercise their independent judgment, and it allows the executive branch to ‘exercise powers not given to it.’
These cases laid the groundwork for Zeldin’s choosing to overturn the EPA’s 2009 “Endangerment Finding.” These criteria were based on questionable science and limited data, and as noted above, was the foundation for much of Biden’s regulatory “Green New Deal” crusade. The costs for Biden’s agenda would have been substantial, with the Heritage Foundation asserting this:
President Joe Biden has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030. My colleagues at The Heritage Foundation estimate that taking the steps needed to make such drastic reductions would result in nearly 8 million lost jobs in 2026, a 90 percent increase in gasoline prices, and a more than $7 trillion hit to the economy. That’s vast economic significance, indeed.
The decision to eliminate the “endangerment finding” will further actualize Zeldin’s plans for the agency. He wants to ensure that all Americans have access to clean water and air; that our energy dominance will reduce energy costs for everyday Americans; that private business projects will be streamlined within the EPA; that the U.S. will become the artificial intelligence leader of the world; and that our auto industry will make a comeback as domestic production grows.
Congress has the opportunity to take back its power and clarify its role relative to the administrative state:
Even if the Supreme Court does not clarify the scope of the major questions doctrine in West Virginia v. EPA, the increasing frequency of legal arguments about this doctrine suggests that it could continue to be an emerging and important issue in administrative law. If the Supreme Court were to adopt the doctrine as some individual Justices have expressed it, then courts applying the doctrine could potentially determine that an agency lacks the ability to determine authoritatively a major question unless its underlying statutory authority clearly permits or requires it to do so. Therefore, if Congress wants an agency to have the flexibility to address potentially complex and difficult-to-foresee policy issues that courts might consider to be of ‘vast’ economic and political significance, Congress could consider how to clearly specify that intention in the relevant underlying statute, as opposed to relying on vague or imprecise statutory language. Alternatively, if Congress wants to prevent an agency from administratively addressing certain major policy issues, it could consider how to clearly circumscribe the agency’s statutory authority.
Those people who have relied on the scaremongering of climate change extremists will try to challenge Zeldin’s plans. But with the questionable science and data that they have relied on, and the repeated overstepping of the administrative state, the U.S. is ready to set the standard for its role as world leader and for powerful economic growth.
Image from Grok.