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Congress Votes to Scrap Obama's Clean Power Plan (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes with news that the House voted 242-180 to repeal the EPA's Clean Power Plan, and 235-188 to block EPA rules governing emissions from new power plants. Science reports: "Congress has voted, largely along party lines, to block a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's climate change agenda. The votes are largely symbolic, however, because Obama plans to veto the bills. Still, Congressional Republicans, and a few Democrats, say they want to send a message to global leaders who are meeting this week to negotiate a new climate agreement that the majority of U.S. lawmakers may not agree with any deal."
This did get legislative approval, and executive approval, and has not met with judicial disapproval.
It was a particularly forward looking bit of legislation that granted the EPA the power to enact rules and regulations within the scope of their mandate so that they can react to environmental threats at a reasonable pace.
If someone doesn't agree, they can request a judicial review to overturn that particular rule or regulation if it is found to be out of scope.
That is how law (theoretically) works, and that is why it is so important that the legislative, the executive, and the judicial branches maintain their separation.
You do understand that the executive branch does have the power and authority to execute the laws as it sees fit, right? You also know that this is exactly how the power was divided by the founders, I am assuming. And yet, you now these things and still post the crap you just did?
If they are symbolic bills, then all we'll get here is bullshit discussion about AGW or worse, politics. Must be a slow news day (well, other than the bigger-than-average daily shooting in San Bernardino)
Kind of like the gazillion attempts to eliminate Obamacare. Convince the nutcases that elected them that they are standing strong and resolute in the face of science and the Kenyan terror baby.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
One of the ways the Federal Government encourages development of technologies is by passing regulations like this. They passed regulations on sulfur dioxide emissions to reduce acid rain and all the businesses were screaming about how much it was going to cost them yet a few years later they developed new technologies that allowed them to reduce the emissions at less cost than the original government estimate. Sometime technological development just needs a good kick in the butt like regulations to get moving.
they have to pass that law with a supermajority that is immune to the current president's veto or get a sympathetic president elected
Actually, there is at least one more typical way in dealing with an unsympathetic president, one might even call it the preferred way. They compromise and bargain, yielding on an issue that an opposing president really needs, in exchange for an issue they really need. However the battle lines for the past ten years or so have been drawn such that every single item that comes up has a strong partisan bias, everyone needs everything simultaneously and will yield nothing. And nothing is exactly what we get out of the deal.
Attaching a rider to a bill is definitely a way things have been done to slide this stuff through once the negotiations have been made, it's good when you lack trust or think you might get outmaneuvered, or just want to slide one by the general public. But you don't just ram that sucker at the president, he can and will veto it, and whether he is popular or not, he has more of the mindshare of the people than any congressman and will call you out on it publicly and it doesn't help anyone.
As far as I'm concerned both parties have become too big and confused with conflicting internal interests that cannot prioritize or compromise even amongst themselves. The democrats are currently the most coherent (but 15 years ago they were off their rocker), but both are really too big to be able to get things done decisively.
Sometimes I think when we do something about these sorts of problems then the younger people coming up who didn't personally experience the problem tend to dismiss it as a problem. Having grown up in the 1950's and 1960's I'm well aware of how much air and water pollution was around back then and how much cleaner they are now but to someone born after 1980 it's not a real thing.
The same thing happens with the anti-vaxxers. My parents grew up in a world almost without vaccination and they weren't all that common when I was young. I had measles, rubella, chicken pox and whooping cough growing up and I knew people who were disabled by polio. The polio vaccine didn't come out until I was 6 years old and I remember how excited my parents were about it. But many of the anti-vaxxers grew up in a world where almost nobody got those diseases (because they'd been vaccinated) so they don't think it's that important.
I don't know what you can do about that because what you read in the history books doesn't seem that real since you didn't experience it yourself.