Last week, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced an amendment to the Interior
Department appropriations bill that would have withheld federal funds for some
18 “czars” appointed by the Obama administration and not confirmed by the
Senate. “There is no careful Senate examination of their character and
qualifications. And we are speaking here of some of the most senior positions
within our government,” Collins told
USA
Today.
Senate Democrats went on to kill
Collins’ amendment using a procedural tactic which
“deeply disappointed” Collins. It is a shame the Collins amendment was not
allowed a vote. But Senate oversight is no solution to the proliferation of
czars under the Obama administration. The problem is much more fundamental to
our Constitutional system and far predates President Barack Obama.
Yesterday the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new
rule that would regulate
greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial
facilities across the country. The EPA claims it has the authority to issue
these regulations pursuant to the 1970 Clean Air Act which authorizes the EPA
to regulate any source that emits more than 250 tons of a recognized
“pollutant” each year. The problem is, the Clean Air Act was never intended to
regulate carbon emissions so the 250 ton threshold would inflict job killing
regulations on millions of small businesses nationwide. The Heritage
Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis has estimated that if the EPA regulated
carbon objectively under the law, the economy would suffer annual
job losses exceeding 800,000 for several years and a cumulative GDP loss of $7
trillion by 2029.
But EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says she has a solution to this problem. “We
know the corner coffee shop is no place to look for meaningful carbon
reductions,” said Jackson. This rule would not cover “every
cow and Dunkin’ Donuts.” So
Jackson has written the new rule to apply to only sources that emit at least
250,000 tons of greenhouse gas a year. But is that legal? Former EPA official
Jeff Holmstead tells the Associated
Press: “Normally, it takes an act of Congress to change the words of a
statute enacted by Congress, and many of us are very curious to see EPA’s
legal justification for today’s proposal.”
And that is the true danger behind a Czar State: the undermining of our
Constitution and the rule of law in favor of an unconstitutional rule of
experts. Boston University Law School professor Gary Lawson explains:
Many administrative agencies have authority over matters that are far
removed from any of the enumerations in the Constitution. Typically, those
agencies have power to promulgate rules under statutory mandates that are
literally meaningless, such as mandates to set clean air standards
“requisite to protect the public health”; to award broadcast licenses “if
public convenience, interest, or necessity will be served thereby”; or to
purchase real estate mortgages “the purchase of which the Secretary
determines promotes financial market stability.” The agencies also often
adjudicate matters under their statutes with only limited court review.
…
That would be exactly the sort of thing that the Constitution of 1788 is
specifically designed to forbid–about as clearly unconstitutional as a title
of nobility or a 28-year-old President. And that, of course, precisely
describes the typical modern administrative agency in America.
The most egregious violation of this principle was the Emergency Economic
Stabilization Act which granted
the Secretary of the Treasury unchecked power to do whatever he wanted without
any meaningful checks. The result was a schizophrenic management of the
Troubled Asset Relief Program which undermined the rule
of law, destroyed market
confidence, and led to the
nationalization of America’s largest automobile manufacturer. Did anyone
in Congress believe they were voting for the government takeover of General
Motors last September? No. Did anyone in Congress believe they were voting to
allow the EPA the authority to regulate carbon emissions from Dunkin Donuts in
1970? No. Such are the evils of the Czar State.
The Washington Post consistently
calls for legislation to tackle
global warming instead of using the Clean Air Act as the Obama administration
is moving to do. But the legislation introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and
Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is no better at containing the EPA’s power than the
Stabilization Act was at containing Treasury’s. According to the Post,
Kerry-Boxer:
The measure also calls for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to
set regulations overseeing the carbon trading market, though it does
not specify what those rules would look like.. …And
the bill does not spell
out how those rebates would be distributed, just as it leaves
open the question of how the federal government would allocate carbon
allowances to ease the
transition to a low-carbon economy.
In other words, Kerry-Boxer turns the fate of our economy over to the
“experts” in the Obama Czar State with no chance for Americans to limit their
power. 800,000
jobs lost a year. Cumulative GDP loss of $7 trillion by 2029. The
harm caused by the destruction of the separation of powers just got a lot less
theoretical.