Diabolical: Democrats Inserted Provision Into "Inflation Reduction Act" Giving EPA Right to Control Carbon Dioxide -- Which the Supreme Court Had Just Ruled It Did Not Have the Right to Regulate

The Supreme Court found that the EPA had no right to regulate carbon dioxide for the simple reason that Congress had never specified it had that power, and that power could not be "inferred" from the list of things it was given the right to regulate.

So guess what the Democrats snuck into the bill that no one had the chance to read?

Did Joe Manchin, hailing from a coal-mining state, know about this? Did he sell out his constituents, or was he just too stupid to notice they were taking him for a ride?

When the Supreme Court restricted the ability of the Environmental Protection Agency to fight climate change this year, the reason it gave was that Congress had never granted the agency the broad authority to shift America away from burning fossil fuels.

Now it has.

Throughout the landmark climate law, passed this month, is language written specifically to address the Supreme Court's justification for reining in the E.P.A., a ruling that was one of the court's most consequential of the term. The new law amends the Clean Air Act, the country's bedrock air-quality legislation, to define the carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels as an "air pollutant."

That language, according to legal experts as well as the Democrats who worked it into the legislation, explicitly gives the E.P.A. the authority to regulate greenhouse gases and to use its power to push the adoption of wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

"The language, we think, makes pretty clear that greenhouse gases are pollutants under the Clean Air Act," said Senator Tom Carper, the Delaware Democrat who led the movement to revise the law. With the new law, he added, there are "no ifs, ands or buts" that Congress has told federal agencies to tackle carbon dioxide, methane and other heat-trapping emissions from power plants, automobiles and oil wells.

This month, in the hours before the bill passed the Senate, Republicans waged a last-minute, mostly unsuccessful predawn battle to remove the language from the legislation. Later that day, the Senate approved the climate-and-tax bill by a vote of 51 to 50, along party lines, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tiebreaking vote.

So Manchin did know about it -- and he specifically voted to keep the provision in the law.

This is a huge provision. The EPA now has the right to make rules -- without the need for additional Congressional authorization -- about how much carbon dioxide any carbon-dioxide-producing engine or factory is allowed to produce.

And Joe Manchin made it happen.

posted by Ace at 05:51 PM

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