The Spirit of ’76 is alive and well at the Supreme Court. Back then, the colonials rejected the rule of a far-away, unaccountable government. After securing their freedom, they quickly organized a government that gave Congress, the duly elected representatives of the people, responsibility for making national policy decisions.
This week, the Supreme Court acted in accord with that spirit by rejecting a power grab by the Environmental Protection Agency and reserving for Congress the right to set far-reaching climate change policy.
The central question in West Virginia v. EPA came down to this: Who is responsible for determining if carbon emissions are a problem and whether something should be done about it? You may recall that President Barack Obama spent more than a year trying to convince Congress to pass a comprehensive bill to reduce emissions as a way of trying to stem climate change. Ultimately, he even threatened Congress, saying that if lawmakers didn’t act to reduce carbon emissions, he would – with his pen and his phone. Yet even though his own party had a House majority and a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Congress balked at capping carbon emissions.
