Bush, the EPA, and the Court

Or: The Executive's Radical Abdication of its Responsibilities Under the Separation of Powers

Not that the Bush administration gives a shit about the Constitution anyway. Which is to say that the Bush administration doesn't give a shit about the only thing that makes all American citizens united as Americans. I could go on and on about how, as everyone who lives here originally came from somewhere else, we cannot, as the French, the Chinese, or Nigerians, claim that we are American because this is where our flesh and blood originated. We don't have race to unite us. We have no "creation myth." We have the Constitution, and we have the Declaration of Independence. And I think that's so much more beautiful. But I'm not going to go on about that. I'm going to talk about the EPA

A few days ago President Bush's EPA head Stephen Johnson announced that the EPA is not going to to anything about greenhouse gas emissions. He claimed that the EPA is going to do more research about whether or not greenhouse gas emissions have consequences harmful to people.

Despite the fact that, as the New York Times reports (click on the title of this post to go to that article), "last December, a task force of agency scientists concluded that emissions do indeed endanger public welfare, that the E.P.A. is required to issue regulations, and that while remedial action could cost industry billions of dollars, the public welfare and the economy as a whole will benefit (emphasis mine)."

This WOULD be business as usual with the Bush Administration (and what we can expect from a potential McCain administration) EXCEPT that the Supreme Court last year decided in Massachusetts et al v. Environmental Protection Agency that the Bush administration MUST take action to determine whether greenhouse gasses were harmful (which it was determined they were) and if so, they MUST take remedial action.

In other words, the Bush administration has been evading the law since EPA scientists submitted their report last December. Now, with the official announcement that the EPA is not going to act on emissions, the administration is openly breaking the law.