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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."

15 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. Symbolic of what by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    "The votes are largely symbolic..." of what? How pigheaded and stupid people can be when they put their "minds" to it?

  2. Re:Why is this on Slashdot? by Holi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Nothing unconstitutional about exercising his veto power.

    --
    Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
  3. Re:Veto nonchange? by SydShamino · · Score: 4

    See the thing is, we've had a country for about 240 years. And in all of those years, Congress has passed lots and lots of bills, many of which were signed into law by the president at the time.

    Most of those laws never expire, and most of those laws are supposed to be executed by the executive branch, but more importantly, most of those bills delegate lots of the details about how to execute the laws to the executive branch. That's generally how laws are written everywhere.

    So, in this case, as in pretty much every other case when dealing with executive orders, the president isn't just making up laws, he is changing how the executive branch will execute laws in ways that were delegated to him by congress. It - whatever it is - is perfectly legal because past congresses and past presidents made it legal (and a court has never ruled it unconstitutional). If the current congress doesn't like it, they should pass a bill to clarify the law so as to restrict the president's ability to interpret it in a way they do not like. Of course, as is built into our system of checks and balances, they have to pass that law with a supermajority that is immune to the current president's veto or get a sympathetic president elected for their attempt to mean anything.

    That system works fine so long as unrelated items aren't put into bills that have to be introduced periodically, such as bills to fund the government or raise the debt ceiling. Congress could have chosen to attach this to the continuing funding resolution or the debt ceiling bill, and told the president to sign it or the government would shut down and the country would default on its debts, and then maybe an unsympathetic president would sign the bill. Of course that could also make it harder for those congresspeople to be reelected.

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    It doesn't hurt to be nice.
  4. Re:Doesn't matter, USA emmisions are already down by bloodhawk · · Score: 5, Informative

    India is moving away from coal and oil???? citation please. They have said they plan to TRIPLE emmisions as they invest heavily in coal and oil as they need cheap power to fuel their economic growth.

  5. Re:huh? by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Shouldn't they be recycling the environmental bill, rather than scrapping it?

    --
    Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  6. Re:Once again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  7. Re:Why is this on Slashdot? by KenDiPietro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

  8. Re:Why is this on Slashdot? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  9. Re:Once again... by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 4, Informative

    This did get legislative approval, and executive approval, and has not met with judicial disapproval.

    More than just "not disapproval"-- it met with a decision by the Supreme Court that the EPA had to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
    Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency 2007.

    So, yes: all three branches.

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    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  10. Re:Least responsible superpower by riverat1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  11. Re:Congress delegated by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Congress through the acts that created the EPA and in the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, etc. have set out general principles for the EPA to follow and delegating the details of implementing those principles to the Executive Branch and EPA. It's completely constitutional to delegate rule making such as this.

    SCOTUS has said that the EPA has authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions under the acts of Congress. If Congress wants to change things they have to pass a new act and get the President to not veto it.

  12. Re:Veto nonchange? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  13. Re:Once again... by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  14. lmgtfy by raymorris · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You want a source for the fact that Warren Buffet bought Burlington Northern for $35 billion? Okay:

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=buffet+bu...

    For the fact that Buffet is a huge Obama donor?
    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=buffet+ob...

    For the fact that Buffet's trains carry the bulk of the oil from where the pipeline ends?

    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=keystone+...

    For some of Obama's donors getting millions and millions of taxpayer money and never producing a single solar panel?
    http://lmgtfy.com/?q=solyndra

    It's not that hard.

  15. Re: Why is this on Slashdot? by kheldan · · Score: 4, Informative

    Because they hate us and want us to die.

    No, they don't. They believe that the world is going to come to an end, and God is going to come down and take them all Home, and nothing we did here will really matter; the Earth is just here for us to use up and who cares what happens to it afterwards? So far as they're all concerned the sooner it all comes to an End the better, they think there's a Heaven waiting for them where everything will be wonderful. Of course they're all idiots and will destroy our REAL home unless we reign them in.

    --
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