E P A  by Tom Reynolds

If one is a  Progressive, the Constitution is an impediment.  It must be neutered or ways must be found to evade the “problem” of Constitutional limitations on government power. 

Progressives want all power in the federal government, superseding any state power.  It’s easier to gain and keep control of one body (federal power) than fifty separate bodies of power.  This, of course, is exactly the opposite of the founding father’s intentions.

The Second Amendment forbids the government from infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Fourteenth Amendment made it clear that the State governments were also forbidden.  New York and other progressive states ignored this limitation on their power, for years, and the courts tended to agree with them until the recent Supreme Court decision.

In the Progressive philosophy, limitations on government power are evil. They prevent the government (which is, of course, Progressives) from doing all the things Progressive theorists think need to be forced upon the poor, ill-educated, stupid, and superstitious common people – for their own good.  It’s the precise opposite of the founder’s thinking, Progressives believe common people cannot be trusted with any power in government, as that will only dilute Progressives’ power.

When Progressives can’t achieve power through the legislature or the courts, they resort to bureaucratic rulemaking – otherwise known as the Swamp.  But the Supreme Court recently threw a significant roadblock into that.

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) curtailed the EPA’s power.

This decision should have a broad impact on other federal agencies – including the BATFE – which want to regulate personal behavior that the agency’s progressives disagree with, and run our lives through bureaucratic rules and regulations.  (But that darn Constitution keeps getting in their way.)

SCOTUS said that Congress alone has the authority to pass laws representing the will of the people. Lawmaking that is delegated to unaccountable bureaucracies, unconstitutionally moves the lawmaking power from the Legislative Branch to the Executive branch. 

“Agencies have only those powers given to them by Congress, and ‘enabling legislation’ is generally not an ‘open book to which the agency [may] add pages and change the plot line…The agency instead must point to ‘clear congressional authorization’ for the power it claims…A decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.”

Justices Gorsuch and Alito wrote in their concurring opinion that regulations enacted by the Executive Branch run the risk of being overturned by each successive administration.

“The framers believed that the power to make new laws regulating private conduct was a grave one that could, if not properly checked, pose a serious threat to individual liberty…In a world like that, agencies could churn out new laws more or less at whim. Intrusions on liberty would not be difficult and rare, but easy and profuse…Stability would be lost, with vast numbers of laws changing with every new presidential administration. Rather than embody a wide social consensus and input from minority voices, laws would more often bear the support only of the party currently in power. Powerful special interests, which are sometimes ‘uniquely’ able to influence the agendas of administrative agencies, would flourish while others would be left to ever-shifting winds. Finally, little would remain to stop agencies from moving into areas where state authority has traditionally predominated.”

Gorsuch and Alito tool a direct shot at former President Obama’s attempt to create a tyrannical state where the Executive Branch is supreme.

“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 regulations as substitutes for laws passed by the people’s representatives. In our Republic, ‘[i]t is the peculiar province of the legislature to prescribe general rules for the government of society.’”

Of course, the three progressive judges disagreed.  Justice Sotomayer once wrote that the people cannot always wait for Congress to act, in defense of Obama’s love of Executive Branch rule making with a “pen-and-phone”. 

Watch to see how BATFE’s new progressive director works to evade the Supreme Court’s decision.