This clause came up in major Supreme Court decisions recently e.g. in the OSHA decision that prevented a vaccine mandate for federal workers, and came up last week too blocking EPA actions related to the Clean Air Act. What is it?
Is this a good summary: Congress can pass laws delegating expert entities to do stuff and make decisions, but the Supreme Court won't let them answer "Major Questions"?
What the heck does that mean? Is that in the Constitution? Since when does SCOTUS decide what a major question is? Certainly a vaccine isn't a major question in my book. I'm more interested in whether SCOTUS thinks I can go 3,000 or 5,000 miles between oil changes.
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02 Jul 22
@wildgrass saidLOL…you just cant make this 💩 up
This clause came up in major Supreme Court decisions recently e.g. in the OSHA decision that prevented a vaccine mandate for federal workers, and came up last week too blocking EPA actions related to the Clean Air Act. What is it?
Is this a good summary: Congress can pass laws delegating expert entities to do stuff and make decisions, but the Supreme Court won't let them ...[text shortened]... ook. I'm more interested in whether SCOTUS thinks I can go 3,000 or 5,000 miles between oil changes.
02 Jul 22
@mott-the-hoople saidMott, libs have a lot of time to 'delve' into these major inconsistencies , I myself am a bit busy, it is all I can do just to read their posts, much less respond. I hardly understood it, with all due respects to Wildgrass, who by the way misrepresented me in another thread. I cant imagine threshing this stuff while Biden is trashing the United States of America.
LOL…you just cant make this 💩 up
Next. Wildgrass will tell us that the Civil War was fought for the wrong reasons.
03 Jul 22
@AverageJoe1
In other words there should be no EPA at all, let companies dump toxins in rivers even if that river is the drinking water for a million people or back to letting 10 yo kids work in mines, nay, FORCING 10 yo kids to work in mines like century 19.
No EPA because companies have learned to be nice.....
The mere IDEA of environmental protection is against FREEDOM.......
03 Jul 22
@sonhouse saidbut the way it is set up, these agencies have almost complete autonomy, and they can *and DO* screw people.
@AverageJoe1
In other words there should be no EPA at all, let companies dump toxins in rivers even if that river is the drinking water for a million people or back to letting 10 yo kids work in mines, nay, FORCING 10 yo kids to work in mines like century 19.
No EPA because companies have learned to be nice.....
The mere IDEA of environmental protection is against FREEDOM.......
There should be a mechanism that allows for the challenging of EVERY agency ion the government. Otherwise, if feels just like dictatorship
03 Jul 22
@Earl-of-Trumps
So the answer is yes, you want ZERO oversight of companies violating environmental rules. Got it. If those companies can fight every decision of the EPA they can keep doing their toxic thing for YEARS while litigation drags on but that doesn't matter a WHIT to you.
Federal government has a DUTY to protect people from bad companies and even YOU will have to admit there ARE bad companies and looks to me like the bad ones far outnumber the good ones.
03 Jul 22
@mott-the-hoople saidI mean, it's crazy right? I was going to ask my auto mechanic what he thought about the 3k vs 5k oil change question (it's not in the Constitution), but maybe SCOTUS has the requisite expertise?
LOL…you just cant make this 💩 up
They seem willing to answer all these major questions for us these days.
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03 Jul 22
@wildgrass saidtodays vehicles will tell you when it is time for a change…Im afraid you have outed yourself as a welfare queen
I mean, it's crazy right? I was going to ask my auto mechanic what he thought about the 3k vs 5k oil change question (it's not in the Constitution), but maybe SCOTUS has the requisite expertise?
They seem willing to answer all these major questions for us these days.
03 Jul 22
1 edit
@wildgrass saidIt's a delegation issue. Let's start with the basics:
This clause came up in major Supreme Court decisions recently e.g. in the OSHA decision that prevented a vaccine mandate for federal workers, and came up last week too blocking EPA actions related to the Clean Air Act. What is it?
Is this a good summary: Congress can pass laws delegating expert entities to do stuff and make decisions, but the Supreme Court won't let them ...[text shortened]... ook. I'm more interested in whether SCOTUS thinks I can go 3,000 or 5,000 miles between oil changes.
1. The Constitution gives the power to legislate to Congress.
2. Congress is not capable, being only 535 people (who spend much of their time on issues unrelated to major legislation), to become granular experts in every field.
3. So, Congress creates administrative agencies and delegates to them the authority to make regulations in particular areas..
For example, Congress can pass the Internet Revenue Code, but it gives the IRS the power to clarify and interpret it with Revenue Rulings.
This is necessary. It's silly to expect Congress to sit there and figure out how many ounces of liquid you should be able to bring through security. The TSA needs to figure that out.
On the other hand, there's a limit to how much Congress can delegate. It would be unconstitutional, for example, for Congress to say "we're appointing a special lawmaking administrative agency to pass all laws and we're going to vacation in Tahiti." There's a limit to what Congress can delegate.
The "major questions doctrine" is kind of in-between: Where Congress CAN delegate authority on important issues, but where they should be very clear when doing so.
From FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp in 2000:
Our inquiry into whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue is shaped, at least in some measure, by the nature of the question presented. Deference [to an administrative agency] premised on the theory that a statute's ambiguity constitutes an implicit delegation from Congress to the agency to fill in the statutory gaps. In extraordinary cases, however, there may be reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress has intended such an implicit delegation. Congress is more likely to have focused upon, and answered, major questions, while leaving interstitial matters to answer themselves in the course of the statute's daily administration"
Essentially, the major questions doctrine is the idea that "if an agency seeks to decide an issue of major national significance, its action must be supported by clear statutory authorization"
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12077
In other words, if the agency is going to do something really big or really significant, it had better have a very clear authority from Congress to do it.
If the IRS is going to clarify Section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code to say that finding a lost item in the street is considered income, it can do so. But if the IRS is going to up and say that we're going to cut off the religious organization exemption to the income tax because we think it's really bad policy, it had better have darn clear authorization to do that sort of thing from Congress.
I get that no1 is very hostile to the doctrine, but I'm just saying what it is. Like most doctrines, my judgment on it depends on how it's applied. It's a concept that makes some underlying sense, but it can also be abused (as it may have been in this case).
03 Jul 22
@mott-the-hoople saidRegardless, it fits the court's definition of a major question.
todays vehicles will tell you when it is time for a change…Im afraid you have outed yourself as a welfare queen
03 Jul 22
1 edit
@wildgrass saidTo take your example, imagine the EPA comes out tomorrow and says we're banning the privately owned automobile to save the planet (not saying it will happen, but bear with me). Does Congress have the authority to do that? Probably. But should the EPA be able to do that without express authorization from Congress? That's the sort of decision I'd like to see made by accountable politicians, not bureaucrats.
I mean, it's crazy right? I was going to ask my auto mechanic what he thought about the 3k vs 5k oil change question (it's not in the Constitution), but maybe SCOTUS has the requisite expertise?
They seem willing to answer all these major questions for us these days.
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03 Jul 22
@wildgrass saidthere is no question involved
Regardless, it fits the court's definition of a major question.
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03 Jul 22
@sh76 saidthe EPA does not and has never had the authority to act unilaterally.
To take your example, imagine the EPA comes out tomorrow and says we're banning the privately owned automobile to save the planet (not saying it will happen, but bear with me). Does Congress have the authority to do that? Probably. But should the EPA be able to do that without express authorization from Congress? That's the sort of decision I'd like to see made by accountable politicians, not bureaucrats.
03 Jul 22
@sh76 saidThanks (once again) for taking the debate question seriously. I'm genuinely curious and this makes sense.
It's a delegation issue. Let's start with the basics:
1. The Constitution gives the power to legislate to Congress.
2. Congress is not capable, being only 535 people (who spend much of their time on issues unrelated to major legislation), to become granular experts in every field.
3. So, Congress creates administrative agencies and delegates to them the authority to make ...[text shortened]... cept that makes some underlying sense, but it can also be abused (as it may have been in this case).
Is 2000 the first time this issue has come up? As Kagan stated in one of her dissents, it does seem like this falls outside the general arguments of the Constitutional "textualists", and I can see how it can be used as a work around for ideological arguments about whether a particular Justice likes the nature of the regulation on its face.
Like, it seems that if the law itself (passed by Congress) gives too much authority to specific regulatory bodies, then the Judicial branch should say that the entire law is unconstitutional, rather than dinking and ducking about specific policy decisions by the EPA.
03 Jul 22
@sh76 saidWhy is SCOTUS involved at all in that? Shouldn't it be up to Congress to decide whether or not that authority was granted to the EPA?
To take your example, imagine the EPA comes out tomorrow and says we're banning the privately owned automobile to save the planet (not saying it will happen, but bear with me). Does Congress have the authority to do that? Probably. But should the EPA be able to do that without express authorization from Congress? That's the sort of decision I'd like to see made by accountable politicians, not bureaucrats.
I think SCOTUS could get involved if the Clean Air Act itself was not constitutional.