Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Hear Ye! A royal proclamation! The King has announced what car you will be able to drive in 2032!
Too much?
A bit perhaps, but it makes the point.
Do you recall Congress passing the law that required 56% of cars produced in 2032 to be electric vehicles? Did you email your congressperson and voice your support or opposition to this bill? Was there a public discussion on C-SPAN or a town hall to hear American voices?
Nope. Just a decree from the EPA.
This story is a little outside of our usual lane, but one that has me riled up.
On March 20th President Biden announced the new EPA regulations on clean energy cars. The massive, unwieldy, often incorrect federal bureaucracy created this regulation out of whole cloth. Perhaps it is a good thing for the environment, perhaps not. Perhaps it is made with the best of intentions. Maybe some government employees have found a way to make a few bucks on the changes (anyone check Paul Pelosi’s investments recently?).
But that is not the point. Recall the civics lessons that you may have learned in elementary school (do they still teach this stuff?). The legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch enforces the laws. That sounds familiar but we seem to have lost our way a bit.
This environmentally friendly dictate defies the spirit, if not the rule, of our Constitution. Government bureaucracies have their place, ensuring that corporations don’t damage our land, air, or water. Ensuring that species are not hunted to extinction. But this seems like a bridge too far.
It is important to keep the checks and balances delineated in the Constitution in place. As politics has become more cutthroat, legislators have been increasingly abdicating power to the president and his executive branch. No one is voting for director of the Environmental Protection Agency. This is not the government our founders intended.
And in the end, it may all be for naught. Several cases currently at SCOTUS, including a reconsideration of a foundational 1984 case known as Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, may end the president’s ability to even issue such a proclamation. Such an outcome would return the power to issue such rulings to the Congress, where it belongs (and where the founders intended).
Biden’s latest overreach demonstrates why SCOTUS has taken these cases up – and why they are likely to end our current era of expanding executive power.
To which we say: Justice Roberts, start your engines.
Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Stay Safe!
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