Obama’s Clean Power Plan Hits The Court Today

This could be a very big deal depending on the outcome. The oral arguments are on Tuesday

(Daily Caller)  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments Tuesday in West Virginia v. EPA, the legal challenge to President Barack Obama’s signature global warming initiative, the Clean Power Plan (CPP).

The litigation is massive in scale — nearly every state in the union is involved in some capacity. West Virginia is leading a coalition of 27 states who are challenging the rule, while 18 states have come to the Plan’s defense. Each side is joined by activist and industry groups, electric companies, academics, lawmakers, tech companies, and retired dignitaries who together have filed over 70 amicus, or friend-of-the-court briefs.

The implications at stake are so significant that the U.S. Supreme Court preemptively issued a stay of the CPP in February, one of the last orders Justice Antonin Scalia participated in before his death. Whatever the result, the decision could be blocked pending a petition for Supreme Court review. What’s more, the D.C. Circuit has elected to hear the case en banc, that is, as a whole, as opposed to a hearing by a three-judge panel which is typical of appeals. The court’s decision underscores the magnitude of the case.

The DC article dives into what the CPP is, the legal rationale behind the suit, what the EPA’s response is, and which way the D.C. court can be expected to rule. And the potential for the Supreme Court, because it will go there.

Not mentioned are the increased costs that will hit average Americans if the plan goes into effect. A few cents here, a dollar there, it all adds up to a higher cost of living.

Furthermore, as much as I dislike Trump, this is exactly one of the reasons it might be better to see him as president than Hillary. If, and it’s a big if, he nominates a justice who won’t go all lefty to the Supreme Court, we can take care of these idiotic type of rules. And let’s not forget the appointments of lower court judges.

Furthermore, appointing people to run agencies who will reign in the excesses and mission creep. And he can whack things like the CPP and Paris climate accord with the stroke of a pen.

Let’s boil the argument down

(Blasting News) Rightly or wrongly, only an act of congress can change the law, if indeed a fix is even needed. One person fighting the CPP is Professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard Law School, President Obama’s mentor. He represents Peabody Energy. At stake is the shuttering of the remaining coal-fired power plants and a decimation of an entire industry.

Even though CO2 is considered ‘non-toxic’ to human health, it is likened to be agreenhouse gas responsible for the one degree of warming since recordkeeping began in the late 1800s. Coal-fired power plants don’t emit mercury, or much else for that matter, so the only gas left in the EPA’s arsenal was CO2.

The litigants will be arguing that the EPA changed the CPP dramatically after the commenting period ended. That would be a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. There is also the anti-commandeering doctrine, which prevents any federal agency from forcing state governments to perform “coercive duties.”

We’ll see how this turns out, and whether the courts favor a governmental system run by the Legislative Branch, as was established by our Constitution, or an Executive dominated one, where they can do whateverthehell they want.

Save $10 on purchases of $49.99 & up on our Fruit Bouquets at 1800flowers.com. Promo Code: FRUIT49
If you liked my post, feel free to subscribe to my rss feeds.

Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed

18 Responses to “Obama’s Clean Power Plan Hits The Court Today”

  1. Dana says:

    Our esteemed host wrote:

    Not mentioned are the increased costs that will hit average Americans if the plan goes into effect. A few cents here, a dollar there, it all adds up to a higher cost of living.

    Here in the Keystone State, Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) is running ads against his Democratic opponent, “Millionaire Katie McGinty,” noting the tax increases she supports, and his line is that as a millionaire, she can afford them, but most Pennsylvanians cannot.

    That’s the problem with the elites: they can always afford a few cents here, a dollar there, but so many of the elites, whether always well-off or the nouveau riche like Jeffrey, cannot understand, or have forgotten if they ever did know, that for those who live paycheck-to-paycheck, a few cents here and a dollar there is actually real money.

    The J Boys are wont to post comments noting that the American people are concerned with global warming climate change, but conveniently forget that they don’t want to actually do anything about it if it is going to cost them money.

  2. Jeffery says:

    The D Boyz (including their godking, The Don), on the rare occasions they are coherent, think and type micro, not macro.

    The goal is to CUT the tax burden on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans and having the always well-off and the nouveau riche make up the difference. Most of my income comes from wages so I pay a high tax rate, and don’t complain, and support a tax increase for people like me.

    There needs to be MORE money in the hands of paycheck-to-paycheck Americans by improving job prospects, employers competing to find good workers (employers compete by raising wages), tax cuts for the non-elites, etc. Paycheck-to-paycheck Americans pay too much for healthcare, pharmaceuticals, local taxes – and receive too little compensation compared to their productivity – and these redistributive effects come from enacted policy. We need to change tax, labor, trade, fiscal, copyright/patent and monetary policies to not punish paycheck-to-paycheck Americans and to stop rewarding the always well-off and the nouveau riche. It’s policy that encourages/enables the Mylan’s to pay their CEO $18 million and raise the price of their drug 10 fold. This is redistribution the way conservatives envision it – redistribution UP. It’s policy that encourages/enables a Trump to “earn” $600 million in a year and not pay any federal tax – he says that proves he’s smart.

  3. Dana says:

    J Boy 1.0 typed:

    The goal is to CUT the tax burden on paycheck-to-paycheck Americans and having the always well-off and the nouveau riche make up the difference.

    And you are going to do this by supporting policies which increase the price of energy, which means increasing the price of everything?

    Your preferred policies might lower direct tax rates on the working class — though how you lower from zero for so many of them is beyond me — but your policies would have them paying more in the indirect, hidden taxes you would impose on corporations and suppliers, businesses which would simply pass those taxes on to the consumers in the prices of their products.

    There needs to be MORE money in the hands of paycheck-to-paycheck Americans by improving job prospects, employers competing to find good workers (employers compete by raising wages), tax cuts for the non-elites, etc.

    Wouldn’t Donald Trump do just that by trying to exclude illegal immigrants, thus shrinking the available labor pool?

    Paycheck-to-paycheck Americans pay too much for healthcare, pharmaceuticals, local taxes

    And the great achievement of the Obama Administration has been to increase the amount Americans must pay for health care; what y’all have done has not worked.

  4. Jeffery says:

    D-Boy 0.5 typed a collection of Don talking points.

    Undocumented immigrants do not hurt the US labor market. We need more jobs, not fewer workers. We need the economy to grow, not another engineered recession.

    The growth of healthcare costs per capita has slowed AND millions of Americans who previously couldn’t afford health insurance now have it! I have a 61 year old friend who was “retired” out of the labor force, has lymphoma and swears that Obamacare saved his life.

    Of course the objective of a carbon energy tax is reduce consumption, not raise money. It’s a market-based approach to change behaviors. If the nominal cost of fossil fuel use is raised to reflect the true societal cost, renewable sources become even more attractive. Deniers deny because they do not want the nominal cost of fossil fuel use to reflect the true societal cost. Some deny because their salary comes from fossil fuel use, some deny because they benefit from the rigged market system, some deny because they dislike government and taxes, some deny because their political opponents support it.

  5. Dana says:

    J Boy 0.½ scrawled:

    Undocumented immigrants do not hurt the US labor market. We need more jobs, not fewer workers. We need the economy to grow, not another engineered recession.

    Yet, after 7½ miserable years under Barack Hussein Obama, we’re averaging less than 2% real growth per year, never having touched 3% in any of his term, and the FOMC recently lowered their projected real growth for 2016 from 2.0% last June to 1.8%. We had the stimulus plan of 2009, which was s’posed to hold U-3 unemployment to a maximum of 8% — it hit 10% — not producing the growth projected. We’ve had three ‘quantitative easing’ programs by the Fed, essentially buying up US debt with money created out of thin air, and we haven’t had strong growth. We’ve had interest rates which have been barely above zero for years, yet business creation is down. The ‘official,’ U-3 unemployment rate is down to 4.9%, but the more realistic U-6 rate is almost twice that, at 9.7%. And your policy advice would make these trends worse, not better.

  6. Dana says:

    J Boy 0.¼ wrote:

    The growth of healthcare costs per capita has slowed AND millions of Americans who previously couldn’t afford health insurance now have it! I have a 61 year old friend who was “retired” out of the labor force, has lymphoma and swears that Obamacare saved his life.

    Right, and that’s why the big insurers are dropping their Obysmalcare participation. Those who couldn’t afford insurance before who have it now do so only because the government is stealing money from me to subsidize those insurance policies.

    Of course the objective of a carbon energy tax is reduce consumption, not raise money. It’s a market-based approach to change behaviors.

    Oh, bovine feces! When you say that the objective is to reduce consumption, the method is to make consumption less affordable. Only a liberal would think that this wouldn’t hurt working Americans. You want people to live poorer!

    Of course, for those who are well off, there wouldn’t be any real change in consumption; it’s only among those who are poor where consumption would be curtailed.

  7. Hoagie says:

    . Most of my income comes from wages so I pay a high tax rate, and don’t complain, and support a tax increase for people like me.

    If you choose to pay more taxes you are free to do so. There is a space on your return for that. The very fact you do not makes you a hypocrite. Your problem Jeffery, is you actually believe yourself both smart enough and virtuous enough to decide whose taxes should be increased. You are neither. People like you somehow have the belief they are qualified to determine how much of what a man earns he should be allowed to keep. You sound like a thief justifying why he stole another guy’s wallet, because “he can afford it”. From each according to his ability to each according to his needs, right comrade Jeffery?

  8. Jeffery says:

    Fellow Traveler Hoagie,

    I DO know that a steady diet of tax cuts for the wealthy over the past 35 years has left us 20 trillion in debt and has not helped paycheck-to-paycheck American families one iota. In fact life has gotten worse for paycheck-to-paycheck families – whiles the lifestyles of the rich and famous have improved beyond their wildest dreams.

    The politicians determine the tax rates, not the individual. And we are now a bonafide plutocracy – our campaign finance system and revolving door gov’t to industry to gov’t elitism guarantees that the wealthy control the levers of power. And for the past 4 decades or so the politicians have slashed the taxes of the wealthy and shifted the burden to two places: debt and stealth taxes/service cuts on the paycheck-to-paycheck families. When local school districts receive fewer federal funds they have to make up the difference by cutbacks or increasing regressive local taxes. When cities no longer can depend on progressively obtained federal funds to fix the roads and pay their firemen/police they defer the work and lay off workers or raise regressive local taxes. Add in the Great Recession which pulled trillions our of the consumer economy and an increase in politically motivated military adventurism, all while cutting taxes on the wealthy and your have the perfect recipe for today’s America – debt, decimated paycheck-to-paycheck working families and a gilded elite.

    It’s not surprise that paycheck-to-paycheck working families are fed up. But further tax cuts for the wealthy and elimination of the safety net will not help them.

  9. Dana says:

    J Boy 0.0 wrote:

    The politicians determine the tax rates, not the individual.

    Now, who ran on cutting taxes?

    Ronald Reagan did, but so did Bill Clinton, and so did the younger George Bush, and so did Al Gore, and so did Barack Hussein Obama, and so are Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The only guy I can remember who ran on raising taxes was Walter Mondale . . . and he carried exactly one state.

    The public want lower taxes, but they don’t want services cut. That doesn’t work too well. We should give the public what they want, lower taxes, and cut services to match.

  10. john says:

    last time I looked coal power plants released 40000 tons of mercury per year UNTIL Obama forced them to remedy that.
    And the Legislative Branch is NOT supposed to “run” our government, that is the job of the Executive Branch. Obama has had 50% + poll numbers for the last 7 months

  11. Liam Thomas says:

    2
    Complexity of Mercury Controls
    CCTR
    Indiana Center for Coal Technology Research
    Source: “Coal Energy Systems”, Bruce G. Miller, 2005, p369
    DOE Example
    If the Houston Astrodome were filled with ping-pong balls
    representing the quantity of flue gas emitted from coal-fired
    power plants in the U.S. each year, 30 Billion
    (30,000,000,000) ping pong balls would be required.
    Mercury emissions would be represented by 30 colored ping
    pong balls &
    the challenge by industry is to remove 21 of
    the 30 colored balls (for 70% compliance) from among
    the 30 Billion.

    To wit:

    To this day, the Obama administration’s move to reduce mercury emissions is among its most contentious.(See above…40 percent of the Mercury found in the USA is believed to have come from China) But experience at the state level is showing that tougher regulations in combination with newer technologies are producing positive results. It’s a trend that is likely to continue but one that will remain hotly contested, especially in the coal-producing states.

    In short Mercury has been under attack since 1990 and the biggest strides in combating it was not the president but rather the states who took upon themselves their own initiatives to do so for the health of their own residents.

    The problem with the Environazis is they dont want solutions they want elimination of fossil fuel sources. This is why AGW is so contentious….if you were seriously just looking for solutions they would probably no longer even be a problem any longer….but your not looking for solutions so that COAL or OIL or natural gas can continue on fueling the planet….your looking for elimination and thats not a solution…..thats an attack upon an industry that employs around 60 million people world wide.

  12. In the world of the left, cutting taxes leaves the government in debt. Say what? Cutting taxes leads to greater federal revenue, because more people participate in the market. This is known. This is obvious. Look at the revenue figures for W’s presidency, for instance.

    Now, the left believes in salvation by government. Thus, even if somehow cutting taxes led to LESS revenue, the left is NEVER EVER interested in reducing government. Do even argue for this is to slay their only hope in life. Thus, people who point out federal waste and redundancy, the billions lost in fraud, the endless opportunities squelched because of government interference – they have nothing to say, and why would they? The degree of government interference is simply not enough – people are too stupid to run things themselves, and so government must help us all into socialized welfare sameness; government must be God and human individuality and uniqueness must be abolished.

  13. Hoagie says:

    ….government must be God and human individuality and uniqueness must be abolished.

    To the left government IS God. How many leftists have you known who believe in God? I have known zero. Their religion is government and since government has no morals neither have they. That’s how a person like Hillary can run ads about how she’s always been for the children all while being for killing the children through abortion.

  14. Jl says:

    J-“illegal immigrants don’t hurt the the US labor market.” What? Of course they do-if they weren’t here those jobs would be filled by documented, legal, US citizens.

  15. Jl says:

    J-A steady diet of tax cuts for the wealthy has left us 20 trillion I debt.” Let me bring reality into the picture for you, J. A steady diet of too much spending is what puts one in debt-Econ.101. The wealthy pay more in taxes as a group now more than they ever did. You could tax the 1% at a 100% and it wouldn’t put a dent in the debt. And don’t forget the democrats did raise taxes on the wealthy a few years ago.

  16. Jeffery says:

    j,

    There are two components to debt – income and spending. Econ 101.

  17. Liam Thomas says:

    There are two components to debt – income and spending. Econ 101.

    I so much wanted to move beyond this simple post by you but I felt obligated to inform you that there are way more then 2 components to debt.

    The University of Wisconsin’s Lawrence M. Berger published a paper in October 2012 entitled, “Household Debt and Adult Depressive Symptoms.” His findings: short-term household debt — mainly credit card debt and overdue bills — is positively associated with “greater depression and stress, declining quality of marital relations and parenting behavior, and adverse child outcomes.”

    Anuj K. Shah of the University of Chicago published a paper in Science Magazine entitled “Some Consequences of Having Too Little.” His study of poor individuals suggests that excessive borrowing often reinforces the conditions that keep people in poverty, because scarcity itself changes how people allocate their attention.

    In “Brain, Decision, and Debt,” the neuroeconomics researchers suggest that “activation of a brain region associated with anticipating gains (the nucleus accumbens) precedes an increased tendency to seek financial gains, whereas activation of another region associated with anticipating losses (the anterior insula) precedes an increased tendency to avoid financial losses.”

    Now I linked all that to say this.

    The government has set upon the American people a conscious decision to make the USA a debtor nation as a result the psychology of personal debt works just as effectively and collectively for the nation as a whole.

    The Obama and Bush Administration has spent something like 12 trillion dollars more then we make and what has it gotten us.

    NOTHING>>>ZIP>>>ZILCH>>>>NADA….and on the contrary we are now a nation that self loathes, hates each other is murdering each other and is rioting in the streets.

    Debt creates self loathing…..so ECONOMICS 101 is a bit of a misnomer. There is way more to debt then just income and spending.

    Its about time that Americas elected officials realize this and the effects its actually having on the country.

    YOU ALL KNOW IM RIGHT….when Bush and Reagan were running deficits the left was APOPLECTIC….now that Obama has been running deficits the Right has been APOPLECTIC.

    Time to fix this….FOR ALL AMERICANS.

  18. Jeffery says:

    I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

    When you spend more than you take in you create debt. You can eliminate debt by spending less or taking in more.

    The national debt was greatest at the end of WWII. Do you agree that WWII was a worthwhile investment? Did we cut spending after WWII or did we raise taxes? We built highways, schools/universities, send people to school on the GI bill, dams, bridges… At the same time we were investing heavily in America and its people, we steadily paid down the debt, reducing it some 70%, until the 1980s intentional recession, tax adjustments and defense spending increases. The debt soared in the 80s (Reagan/Bush I). A tax hike in the 90s resulted in once again paying down the debt (Clinton I). More tax cuts, a war of choice, and the Great Recession all added to the debt in the 2000s (Bush II). During the Great Recession we had more tax cuts (FICA) and increased spending on Medicaid, unemployment payments, fiscal stimulus and food assistance (Obama).

    As I stated earlier, there are 2 components to federal debt, spending and tax income. I have no idea what you were trying to say. One mentally disturbed by the debt, and interested in reducing it should be looking for ways to do that rather than whining that their modest taxes are too high and angling for further tax cuts.

    Where can we cut spending that doesn’t harm the nation and people? Recall – the biggest spending spree in world history was our efforts in WWII – you agree that was a good investment? You agree that we’re better off now that the greatest generation invested the largest unfunded mandate in human history and then paid it off over the course of 40 years with the highest federal taxes in history, right? They didn’t say we couldn’t afford to build airports, schools or roads. They didn’t say we couldn’t afford to pay for Social Security, education or healthcare for the elderly.

    So in the face of the new round of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, what massive cuts in spending do you propose we make?

    Almost all of federal spending is made up of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Military and debt payments. THEDon has said he would renegotiate the debt payments (like he “renegotiated” payments to his contractors). As Clinton II pointed out Monday, this would be disastrous. Libs have been trying to fix Medicare and Medicaid for decades over the objections of Cons. A single payer system similar to those of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, German, Holland, Israel, Japan, S Korea, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway etc etc will cut overall spending on healthcare in the US.

    That leaves Social Security and Defense.

    Current elites say our old age pensions and healthcare for the elderly are far too generous (ignoring that Social Security has run a surplus for decades). How much would you cut current monthly Social Security payments to balance the budget? 10%, 50%, 75%? Privatize old age pensions? Eliminate the program altogether? Can extreme cons get the votes to eliminate SS?

    Defense? How much should we cut? 50%?

Pirate's Cove