And once again the dissent is all about the feelings.West Virginia wins:
One thing I'm struck by (especially in light of the subsequent decision in Biden v Texas): for all the claims that the "right wing" of SCOTUS votes "en bloc" on any and every decision, it seems obvious to me that it is the "right wing" that acts as the swing vote in these decisions. How often, if ever, do the 3 members of the "left wing" appear on opposite sides of a SCOTUS decision?And once again the dissent is all about the feelings.
FTD:This is great. The court has determined that withdrawing a rule because its getting challenged in court does not make it a moot point. Lots of gun control attempts happen this way and this is why it took forever to get a NY case to the court.
In the last 10-15 years I don't remember one case.One thing I'm struck by (especially in light of the subsequent decision in Biden v Texas): for all the claims that the "right wing" of SCOTUS votes "en bloc" on any and every decision, it seems obvious to me that it is the "right wing" that acts as the swing vote in these decisions. How often, if ever, do the 3 members of the "left wing" appear on opposite sides of a SCOTUS decision?
The Government attempts to downplay matters, noting that the
Agency must limit the magnitude of generation shift it demands to a
level that will not be “exorbitantly costly” or “threaten the reliability
of the grid.” Brief for Federal Respondents 42. This argument does
not limit the breadth of EPA’s claimed authority so much as reveal it:
On EPA’s view of Section 111(d), Congress implicitly tasked it, and it
alone, with balancing the many vital considerations of national policy
implicated in the basic regulation of how Americans get their energy.
There is little reason to think Congress did so. EPA has admitted that
issues of electricity transmission, distribution, and storage are not
within its traditional expertise. And this Court doubts that “Congress
. . . intended to delegate . . . decision of such economic and political
significance,” i.e., how much coal-based generation there should be
over the coming decades, to any administrative agency. Brown & Wil-
liamson, 529 U. S., at 160. Nor can the Court ignore that the regula-
tory writ EPA newly uncovered in Section 111(d) conveniently enabled
it to enact a program, namely, cap-and-trade for carbon, that Congress
had already considered and rejected numerous times. The importance
of the policy issue and ongoing debate over its merits “makes the
oblique form of the claimed delegation all the more suspect.” Gonzales,
546 U. S., at 267–268. Pp. 20–28.
In the end, our disagreement really seems to center on a
difference of opinion about whether the statute at issue
here clearly authorizes the agency to adopt the CPP. The
dissent even complains that I have failed to conduct an ex-
haustive analysis of the relevant statutory language. See
post, at 28, n. 8. But in this concurrence, I have sought to
provide some observations about the underlying doctrine on
which today’s decision rests. On the merits of the case be-
fore us, I join the Court’s opinion, which comprehensively
sets forth why Congress did not clearly authorize the EPA
to engage in a “generation shifting approach” to the produc-
tion of energy in this country. Ante, at 28. In reaching its
judgment, the Court hardly professes to “appoin[t] itself”
“the decision-maker on climate policy.” Post, at 33. The
Court acknowledges only that, under our Constitution, the
people’s elected representatives in Congress are the deci-
sionmakers here—and they have not clearly granted the
agency the authority it claims for itself. Ante, at 31.
*
When Congress seems slow to solve problems, it may be
only natural that those in the Executive Branch might seek
to take matters into their own hands. But the Constitution
does not authorize agencies to use pen-and-phone regula-
tions as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s repre-
sentatives. In our Republic, “t is the peculiar province of
the legislature to prescribe general rules for the govern-
ment of society.” Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cranch 87, 136 (1810).
Because today’s decision helps safeguard that foundational
constitutional promise, I am pleased to concur.
IANAL, but to my (skimmed) reading, this seems to be a narrowly tailored decision, that has, overall, minimal impact on administrative-state rulemaking.The real question for the lawyers is how does this effect things like the ATF making s*** up as they go along