Comments From Supporters Of EPA's New Power Plant Rule

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  • My last post highlighted two lengthy comments submitted to EPA by groups of states critical of the agency’s recently-proposed “Power Plant Rule.” (EPA’s official title: “New Source Performance Standards for GHG Emissions from New and Reconstructed EGUs; Emission Guidelines for GHG Emissions from Existing EGUs; and Repeal of the Affordable Clean Energy Rule.” ).

  • The Rule seeks to eliminate, or nearly so, all greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plants, by some time in the 2030s. The comments that I highlighted delve into substantial technical detail, giving serious reasons why EPA’s proposed transformation of the country’s electricity generation system is unlikely to work and poses severe risks to the people’s electricity supply.

  • What about on the other side? Are there any comments on the proposed Rule that are supportive of the Rule, and that even contend that its restrictions on use of fossil fuels to generate electricity should be made more stringent, and/or advanced in time? The answer is that there are many such comments.

  • But how do these supportive comments deal with the problems identified in the critical comments?

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How To Think Like A Liberal Supreme Court Justice -- Part II

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  • Just over a year ago, on July 5, 2022, I had a post titled “How To Think Like A Liberal Supreme Court Justice.” The post was occasioned by the then-brand-new issuance (June 30, 2022) of the biggest decision of the Court’s last term, West Virginia v. EPA. Justice Kagan had authored a dissent on behalf of herself and the other two liberal justices (Breyer and Sotomayor).

  • My post also discussed two other significant decisions of the 2021-22 term where the three liberals had again dissented as a bloc: Alabama Association of Realtors v. HHS and NFIB v. Department of Labor.

  • And now we have several more big decisions just issued with the same 6-3 voting split (Justice Jackson having replaced Breyer). The most significant is SFFA v. Harvard.

  • So suppose you want to learn how to think like a liberal Supreme Court justice. If so, I submit that there is no better place to look than the dissents in cases where the three liberal justices dissent as a bloc.

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Biden And Trump Classified Documents Scandals: Progressive Talking Point Falls Apart

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Biden And Trump Classified Documents Scandals: Progressive Talking Point Falls Apart

  • I have so far avoided weighing in on the Biden and Trump classified documents scandals, but I guess the time has finally come.

  • I’ve had a “Secret” clearance in my life, and almost all of the “classified” documents I have seen have been of very underwhelming significance. So when the Trump classified document thing blew up with the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago back in August, I was not impressed.

  • It reeked of something highly likely to be completely devoid of real world significance, but useful to Biden and the left because Trump would be put in a position of not being able to defend himself publicly without disclosing the contents of the documents.

  • Meanwhile Trump as President had had complete authority to declassify the documents if he wanted, and his position was that he had done so. But even if Trump had a good or even excellent position that he had declassified the documents, he would not take the risk of disclosing their contents to defend himself.

  • So it seemed like a total freebie for Biden to go on 60 Minutes in September and say “How could anyone be that irresponsible?”

  • I want to look at two aspects in particular: (1) Do the facts support that Biden was “fully cooperating” with respect to this likely criminal matter involving him? and (2) Does Trump have a reasonable position that documents in his possession with classified “markings” had been declassified?

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Formerly Respected Organizations; Now Just Foot Soldiers Of Leftist Orthodoxy Enforcement

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  • As previously mentioned here, I’m currently involved in a legal case where my client — the Concerned Household Electricity Consumers Council — seeks to compel EPA to reconsider and revoke the 2009 action by which the agency claimed to determine that CO2 and other “greenhouse gases” constitute a “danger to human health and welfare.”

  • That agency action could well be the single most absurd and destructive thing that the U.S. government has ever done in its 234 year history. The “Endangerment Finding” is the regulatory foundation that underlies all of the more than one hundred initiatives of the Biden Administration to destroy our energy infrastructure, drive up the cost of gasoline, heat, and electricity, and leave the American people impoverished and freezing in the dark.

  • It goes without saying that the government, under direction from the Biden White House and environmental zealots within EPA, opposes our efforts with every resource at its disposal.

  • But here’s what does not go without saying: a collection of non-profit organizations who would otherwise be strangers to the litigation has nevertheless sought to “intervene” in the case to support the position of the government.

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A True Progressive Top Court Takes On Climate Change: The Case Of Germany

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A True Progressive Top Court Takes On Climate Change: The Case Of Germany

  • Two of my recent posts have looked at critiques from the left of the Supreme Court’s decision in West Virginia v. EPA — the June 30 decision that held that the Clean Air Act did not clearly give EPA authority to order the phase-out of all fossil-fuel generated electricity in the U.S.

  • My July 5 post, “How To Think Like A Liberal Supreme Court Justice,” summarized Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent in the West Virginia case. My September 12 post, “How The Left Views Administrative Law,” discussed the presentation at the Federalist Society convention by Professor Sally Katzen of NYU Law School, where she stated her belief that EPA did have the authority in question, and criticized the Court for having taken “an extreme action to shut down rule-making.”

  • But the Kagan dissent and Katzen presentation are just critiques of the approach to this matter taken by our constitutionalist-dominated Supreme Court. A separate question is, what would the liberals do if they suddenly found themselves in control of the top court — say, if a new Democrat-controlled Congress decides to create six new justices to be appointed by President Biden?

  • At the lunch following the panel where Professor Katzen spoke, I found myself sitting next to two lawyers who had come from Germany to attend the convention. One of them said to me, in essence, you have no idea what a country’s top court might do when it feels that its powers are unconstrained.

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How The Left Views Administrative Law: A Highlight From The Federalist Society Convention

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  • You may have seen that the Federalist Society has been holding its annual convention in Washington. I was there on Thursday and Friday. They have recorded all the presentations. If you want to watch some, go to this link and see what interests you.

  • There was not a lot of moaning about the election results. Rather, the focus was on high-minded issues, mostly of constitutional and administrative law.

  • I have selected a highlight that you may find interesting. One of the lunchtime panels on Thursday was titled “Render Law Unto Congress and Execution Unto the Executive: The Supreme Court Rebalances Constitutional Power.” Here is the description of the subject of the panel:

  • The Roberts Court is recasting the administrative state according to its view of the separation of powers. It is giving the President more authority to fire his subordinates and creating a hierarchical executive where the President and his principal officers have more authority over appointments and decision making.

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