The Supreme Court strikes again; EPA has been restricted

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ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,004
146
The effects of our Industrial Age has taken a moment in time to affect our world negatively. The slower we respond, the less and less likely we survive it.
 

brycejones

Lifer
Oct 18, 2005
25,992
23,792
136
at least to me, telling federal agencies that they don't have unlimited powers is also a good thing. where the line is, is for congress to figure out, not the agency to push the line further and further.
They never had unlimited powers. Congress specifically foresaw that issues could be identified that needed to be addressed and gave the EPA the power to do so. The majority opinion in this case uses a made up doctrine to decide that the black letter law as written isn’t valid. If you’re concerned about the rule of law you should be outraged at this decision.
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,004
146
They never had unlimited powers. Congress specifically foresaw that issues could be identified that needed to be addressed and gave the EPA the power to do so. The majority opinion in this case uses a made up doctrine to decide that the black letter law as written isn’t valid. If you’re concerned about the rule of law you should be outraged at this decision.

Wonder where @herm0016 got that idea then
 

FelixDeCat

Lifer
Aug 4, 2000
29,103
2,016
126
You can absolutely run a power plant with no profit. Non profits are a thing already, and they survive just fine.

You ask others to think about this rationally, and then struggle to do so yourself.

So what are you waiting for? Go raise $5 billion dollars and start a non profit power plant. Im sure your investors will be pleased to lose all their invested money because they will never get anything back much less any earnings.

Sounds like a winner to me!

Simon-Cowell-eyeroll-gif.gif
 
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ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,004
146
So what are you waiting for? Go raise $5 billion dollars and start a non profit power plant. Im sure your investors will be pleased to lose all their invested money because they will never get anything back much less any earnings.

Sounds like a winner to me!

View attachment 63928

Oh, i c, you went with the irrational hyperbole some more.

Way to once again solidly reveal what YOUR motivations are. Naked capitalism, fuck people, fuck the planet.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,974
7,891
136
So what are you waiting for? Go raise $5 billion dollars and start a non profit power plant. Im sure your investors will be pleased to lose all their invested money because they will never get anything back much less any earnings.

Sounds like a winner to me!

View attachment 63928


Well that was how it worked here (the power plants all being state-owned), till the Conservatives privatized them all. Which led to our dependence on Russian gas, and then to chaos, with utility companies going bankrupt en masse, and energy bills going through the roof.
Though much of it is still state-owned, just by foreign states (EDF are owned by the French government).
 

ch33zw1z

Lifer
Nov 4, 2004
37,734
18,004
146
Well that was how it worked here (the power plants all being state-owned), till the Conservatives privatized them all. Which led to our dependence on Russian gas, and then to chaos, with utility companies going bankrupt en masse, and energy bills going through the roof.
Though much of it is still state-owned, just by foreign states (EDF are owned by the French government).

And FDC has no problem with that, because FYGM
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
14,006
12,077
146
So what are you waiting for? Go raise $5 billion dollars and start a non profit power plant. Im sure your investors will be pleased to lose all their invested money because they will never get anything back much less any earnings.

Sounds like a winner to me!

View attachment 63928
Humanity will not survive unregulated capitalism in the energy sector.
 

Fenixgoon

Lifer
Jun 30, 2003
31,493
9,824
136
oh hey, nothing like destroying some of our most valuable national (and natural) treasures

someone hit the reset button. this simulation sucks balls.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,031
5,495
146
Oh, i c, you went with the irrational hyperbole some more.

Way to once again solidly reveal what YOUR motivations are. Naked capitalism, fuck people, fuck the planet.

Nah, its not even capitalist as he's regularly argued against Capitalist ideals when its something he doesn't like. Its just straight up right wingers matter and fuck everyone else.

Also, there's no point responding to their trash, they've literally never offered a salient point in this subforum and have admitted repeatedly they're just here to troll.
 
Mar 11, 2004
23,031
5,495
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I’ve provided enough links in this thread for you to educate yourself on the issue. Is there a reason you didn’t bother to look into it?

If congress created the EPA to address environmental issues and to clean up our water and reduce air pollution and they gave them authority to create regulations and enforcement of those regulations but congress did not say anything about either being too disruptive that they would need congressional approval first, then isn’t the Supreme Court legislating from the bench?

How is it in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled the EPA had broad authority and now it doesn’t? Which ruling do you think was legislating from the bench?

He's a right winger, he's chosen to be stupid. You'll never get anywhere responding to his trash.
 
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SMOGZINN

Lifer
Jun 17, 2005
14,202
4,401
136
Humanity will not survive unregulated capitalism in the energy sector.
Basic services like utilities should not be privately owned. Capitalism does not work at those scales. You can't have any real competition on something that is a basic need for everyone. Especially when the entry price is so high it requires the government to pick winners for it to happen at all. That is not capitalism, it is some weird form of corporate feudalism.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
14,006
12,077
146
Basic services like utilities should not be privately owned. Capitalism does not work at those scales. You can't have any real competition on something that is a basic need for everyone. Especially when the entry price is so high it requires the government to pick winners for it to happen at all. That is not capitalism, it is some weird form of corporate feudalism.
Our public services should probably just be controlled by an AI at this point. Current system is too open to exploitation to be tenable.
 
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pmv

Lifer
May 30, 2008
12,974
7,891
136
Basic services like utilities should not be privately owned. Capitalism does not work at those scales. You can't have any real competition on something that is a basic need for everyone. Especially when the entry price is so high it requires the government to pick winners for it to happen at all. That is not capitalism, it is some weird form of corporate feudalism.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting how it's played out here. Power and water were for a long time strategically-controlled state monopolies. Then they privatised them all. Now it seems to work out that they operate in largely fictional 'markets', artificially created by the state.

The water companies are 'regulated' to a degree that to me says they might as well have been left as state run bodies in the first place. There is no 'market' in water, you have no choice but to buy it from your local company. It's all a weird fiction. Much of the efforts made by the private water companies seems to go into 'gaming' the system, and concealing profits in order to justify price increases to the government regulator.

The way the energy sector operates is also baffling. Most of the 'energy companies' are just billing agencies, that don't actually own or build any power generation capacity but buy energy on the open market, and gamble that they can resell it to consumers at a profit.
Some of them are owned by foreign governments, and use their UK arm as a means of extracting money from the UK consumer in order to subsidise their operations back home.

Then when the gamble goes wrong, the state bails them out. This "free market" government just handed everyone in the country a lump of tax-payers money that they can use to pay their soaring power bills, in order to save the power companies (that don't actually produce any power) from going bust.

It just all seems so baroquely complicated, would have been simpler to just keep it all in state hands. Some things do seem to gain from being in the private sector - I find it hard to imagine the internet and mobile phone system being run by a still-state-owned BT - but power, and especially water, really don't seem to make sense.

There are multiple reasons why the state needs to retain strategic control over the nation's power supplies - whether its addressing climate change or geopolitical issues like conflict with Russia or other fuel suppliers.
 

Xcobra

Diamond Member
Oct 19, 2004
3,623
365
126
Look around you guys, the current civilization as we know it, is in some serious decline. I'd say, fuck it and let nature wipe us out. Was hoping it was after I was dead but oh well 😢 Conservative assholes!
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
23,331
10,238
136
Well that was how it worked here (the power plants all being state-owned), till the Conservatives privatized them all. Which led to our dependence on Russian gas, and then to chaos, with utility companies going bankrupt en masse, and energy bills going through the roof.
Though much of it is still state-owned, just by foreign states (EDF are owned by the French government).
Same thing happened to most of the hospitals in this country. Thanks Nixon.
 
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Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,446
136
I’ve provided enough links in this thread for you to educate yourself on the issue. Is there a reason you didn’t bother to look into it?

If congress created the EPA to address environmental issues and to clean up our water and reduce air pollution and they gave them authority to create regulations and enforcement of those regulations but congress did not say anything about either being too disruptive that they would need congressional approval first, then isn’t the Supreme Court legislating from the bench?

How is it in 2007 the Supreme Court ruled the EPA had broad authority and now it doesn’t? Which ruling do you think was legislating from the bench?

1. The thread is not about coal fired plants. The particulars of the court case are largely auxiliary to the power struggle at play here. The meat we're chewing on is the balance between Congress, the Court, and Agencies. You asked of it, but in my haste I did not look at the case.

2. The Court can do as it likes. Legislating from the bench is simply a term for decisions Republicans do not like. In their victory, you have adopted their language. It remains tripe.

Having had time to chew on this, it all stems from a dysfunctional government. The OP article has a quote.
"That's a very big deal because they're not going to get it from Congress because Congress is essentially dysfunctional," said Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus
This fact also gave rise to the Republican Court opinion of fearing Agency overreach without Congressional input. Yet their posited solution will not work without said input. A disastrous take, to rely on something that cannot be relied upon. It should also be true that, if an Agency oversteps, Congress is free to reign it in. They can snap their fingers and achieve said goal of asserting their own power over the Agency. The issue remains, many in Congress support either side and no one has enough votes to act.

So then we turn to our executive to act in their stead. And in turn, the Institution that is our government body and its many Agencies. Because of this, and the observations above, I begrudgingly oppose this Court decision. Sure - I would like us to be more Democratic, but we must make do with what we have until a proper solution is achieved, and this Court decision is NOT it.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
83,718
47,407
136
1. The thread is not about coal fired plants. The particulars of the court case are largely auxiliary to the power struggle at play here. The meat we're chewing on is the balance between Congress, the Court, and Agencies. You asked of it, but in my haste I did not look at the case.

2. The Court can do as it likes. Legislating from the bench is simply a term for decisions Republicans do not like. In their victory, you have adopted their language. It remains tripe.

Having had time to chew on this, it all stems from a dysfunctional government. The OP article has a quote.
"That's a very big deal because they're not going to get it from Congress because Congress is essentially dysfunctional," said Harvard law professor Richard Lazarus
This fact also gave rise to the Republican Court opinion of fearing Agency overreach without Congressional input. Yet their posited solution will not work without said input. A disastrous take, to rely on something that cannot be relied upon. It should also be true that, if an Agency oversteps, Congress is free to reign it in. They can snap their fingers and achieve said goal of asserting their own power over the Agency. The issue remains, many in Congress support either side and no one has enough votes to act.

So then we turn to our executive to act in their stead. And in turn, the Institution that is our government body and its many Agencies. Because of this, and the observations above, I begrudgingly oppose this Court decision. Sure - I would like us to be more Democratic, but we must make do with what we have until a proper solution is achieved, and this Court decision is NOT it.
I get your overall complaint and I share it (that a dysfunctional Congress is destroying our government) but in this case Congress HAD acted. The system was working as intended until SCOTUS created a new requirement with no basis in the statute or Constitution. Their reasoning was literally this:

1) Is the statute the regulation is based on constitutional? Yes.
2) Is the regulation in question in compliance with the statute? Yes.
3) The regulation is invalid anyway because we have declared the regulation of CO2 emissions a 'major question'.
4) What is a major question? Whatever a judge decides is a major question.

SCOTUS has created an unimaginably vast new power that can be employed at will and with no electoral accountability. The judiciary can now invalidate any regulation it doesn't like without requiring a basis in the law or the Constitution.
 

Jaskalas

Lifer
Jun 23, 2004
33,382
7,446
136
The judiciary can now invalidate any regulation it doesn't like without requiring a basis in the law or the Constitution.

The basis was ever our rights being infringed upon by a government. Our rights effectively grant the power of stasis to the Courts. To bar the Government from action(s).
To whit, I would prefer if we had a better solution. The Court offered theirs and we must oppose such a flawed construct.