The United States Constitution appears to be consigned to the role of fairytale in our post-modern society, because it seems like any discussion of how our representative government is supposed to function begins with the words, “Once upon a time...”.

In keeping with that fairytale motif, let us pretend for the moment that the constitutionally enumerated powers of the legislative branch of government still mean something. Oh, I’m not talking about that restrictive little list of things enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 which are actually specifically delineated as within the purview of Congress. Ever since the Commerce Clause was blown up into something you might see floating in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the legislative power of the federal government has long since outgrown the constraints placed upon it by the founding fathers. No, I’m asking for you to momentarily suspend your disbelief and imagine a government in which the legislative branch actually drafted the legislation — rather than what we apparently have at present, which is the executive branch writing its own law.

If the legislative branch was still a functioning branch of government, a whole host of bureaucratic power grabs would have been recognized as unconstitutional, and crushed  by our elected representatives. Take, for example, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s “endangerment finding” concerning carbon dioxide — a move which was widely interpreted as intended to make an ‘end run’ around the United States Senate, which apparently was not lurching headlong into “cap and trade” as fast as the Obama Administration wanted. In our fairytale, citizens and elected representatives of good will — regardless of political party — would have viewed such an action as a willful violation of the Constitution, and would have settled for nothing less that the immediate resignation of Ms. Jackson.

Now back to the real world.

Instead of such a defense of the rule of law, we are subjected to the following bit of absurdity from the keyboard of John Broder over at The New York Times:

In a direct challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority, Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced a resolution on Thursday to prevent the agency from taking any action to regulate carbon dioxide and other climate-altering gases.

That’s right: In Mr. Broder’s world, it is the senator who is challenging the “authority” of the EPA to unilaterally impose sweeping legislation.

One might permit Mr. Broder a bit of slack, since he is probably still mourning the failure of his hero, Barrack Obama, to ‘deliver’ at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. But the text cited above was the first sentence of his recent article. If Broder’s recollection of the Constitution is a little bit fuzzy, certainly someone on the editorial staff at The New York Times has read that musty old document at some point in the last few years. (After all, there’s even an iPhone “app” for that, fellows! You can look cool and still familiarize yourselves with the highest law of the land.)

But Mr. Broder was only getting warmed up.

Ms. Murkowski, joined by 35 Republicans and three conservative Democrats, proposed to use the Congressional Review Act to strip the agency of the power to limit emissions of greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court gave the agency legal authority to regulate such emissions in a landmark 2007 ruling.

Well, there you go. You know, pure oxygen is a pretty hazardous substance, too. And divers have to worry about nitrogen narcosis. Perhaps Ms. Jackson should use the magical powers granted to her by the Supreme Court to regulate oxygen and nitrogen, too. In fact, we should just look to the EPA to create an entirely new atmosphere for us. After all, Barrack Obama declared that his election as President would signal to future generations “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal” and the Leader has pointed to Ms. Jackson as the one who is his instrument to heal our atmosphere. What’s the rule of law in comparison to Mr. Obama’s mandate for unprecedented change?

The stunning thing is that Ms. Murkowski was able to find three democrats who had not been ‘borged’ by Majority Leader Harry Reid. Speaking of Sen. Reid, Mr. Broder does document that an attitude of “the ends justifies the means” still reigns in the majority leader’s office:

An aide to Mr. Reid said that the measure was unlikely to come to a vote before March because of a crowded legislative calendar. He also said that while Mr. Reid believes that legislation to address climate change is preferable to E.P.A. regulation, the agency must retain the authority to act if Congress does not.

“There is no disagreement that it would be better than E.P.A. regulation for Congress to pass bipartisan comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation that creates jobs, improves our energy security and invests in making our economy and businesses more efficient and globally competitive,” the aide, Jim Manley, said. “But, thus far, very few Republicans have shown any willingness to work with us to get that done.”

In short, this means that all that matters is the outcome. Oh, it would be nice if the regulation could be implemented by means of a process which wears some of the rags of constitutionality, but the key thing is getting the job done.

After all, as Mr. Broder reminds us,

The agency has declared carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to be a threat to human health and the environment and is moving to write regulations to restrict emissions from vehicles, power plants and other major sources. The action could impose significant costs on the economy but would also rein in production of the heat-trapping gases that most scientists link to worrisome changes in the global climate.

“Worrisome changes”? That’s what we call the administration’s assault on the Constitution. Anthropogenic climate change is, at best, a theory; and it is a theory which is looking more and more flaky all the time. But the assault on the rule of law in this nation is easily demonstrated, and the implications for future generations of Americans is quite grave.

Rt. Rev. James Heiser has served as Pastor of Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas, while maintaining his responsibilities as publisher of Repristination Press, which he established in 1993 to publish academic and popular theological books to serve the Lutheran Church.  Heiser has also served since 2005 as the Dean of Missions for The Augustana Ministerium and in 2006 was called to serve as Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). An advocate of manned space exploration, Heiser serves on the Steering Committee of the Mars Society. His publications include two books; The Office of the Ministry in N. Hunnius' Epitome Credendorum (1996) and A Shining City on a Higher Hill: Christianity and the Next New World (2006), as well as dozens of journal articles and book reviews.

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DDW

January 25, 2010

173.74.213.85

Votes: +8

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And the arrogance

Of those who believe they possess the right to rule us grows larger every single day. It is the bureaucracies who should be out of a job, not the private sector. The judicial, as well as the executive branches need some severe and serious trimming.

rprew

January 25, 2010

72.201.107.33

Votes: +9

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The best approach

The one sure way to permanently and firmly regain control of the EPA in such a fashion that they would be unable to counter or ignore is two step process:
1) Defund.
2) Abolish.

Larry Brown

January 25, 2010

209.40.77.108

Votes: +8

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Beyond belief.....

There are three substances that are essential for life on Earth:

1. Oxygen (you can live only 3 minutes without it),
2. Water (you can live only 3 days without it), and
4. Carbon dioxide (you can live only 30 days without food; plants cannot grow without it; all food ultimately comes from plants).

It is beyond belief and gross incompetence for anyone to declare that one of the three substances essential for life is a pollutant.

deracinated

January 26, 2010

72.71.110.146

Votes: +3

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...

You for got the Sun light,unless you just mean bacteria and fungi,wait they need the Sun too. I still agree with you. Is defund a word? Not in English anyway. The Rothschild's and the former communists from E. Germany have high jacked this whole nation let alone the EPA and the Green Movement. We must work to take it back. Just as they worked, to abolish our rights with false flag opp's over the last century. Only difference is we don't have a 100 years to do it. Oh and may I say Allen Gore is an evil fool? Peace!

rprew

January 26, 2010

72.201.107.33

Votes: +4

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Is defund a word? Not in English anyway.

de·fund (d-fnd)
tr.v. de·fund·ed, de·fund·ing, de·funds
To stop the flow of funds to: "Some days, they wake up with a burning desire to defund the Public Broadcasting System and the National Endowment for the Arts" (Joe Conason).

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

And all along I thought "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language" was written in English. How foolish of me!

Pat Henry

January 26, 2010

189.130.6.122

Votes: +6

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legitimate Power requires legal Authority

The Supreme Court has no grant to give anyone authority, only to rule on Constitutionality.

The Congress cannot create autonomous "regulatory agencies" when the powers it has are VESTED in the Congress itself.

The Executive, likewise. It only has authority to execute power for things directly granted via the Constitution, or by Constitutional legislation from Congress.

It is about time lower magistrates began to treat these things as they legally ARE, rather than submitting to every tinpot dictator who receives tax monies from the communistic IRS (likewise unConstitutional). I guess you can tell I also vote for candidates with the Libertarian and Constitution Parties.

Glenn Williams

January 28, 2010

68.15.211.143

Votes: +3

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Defunding Doesn't Go Far Enough

There are a number of agencies that have long been part of powergrab politics out of DC. EPA is one that has cost the American taxpayer $Billions ($Trillions maybe?) and is known for moonbat thinking, even under the anointed 'conservative' party, the GOP. Right now they are entertaining revisions to the Clean Water Act that will restrict discharges so severely to surface waters that reverse osmosis (RO) will have to be used to comply. For those who don't know, RO is the most expensive water treatment in use at the present, and EPA is conjuring up rules not for drinking water, but for all stormwater runoff (from rainfall) as well as sewage. This alone will be so expensive to do (with little evidence to back it up) that as soon as it is put into effect by EPA there will be potentially hundreds of utilities and municipalities filing lawsuits. Now tell me, what postitive change comes from wasting even more money on attorney fees for the capricious action of these agencies? Washington will only stop the frittering away of what we the people earn if they are forced to. In my opinion, EPA should be #1 on the list to be abolished, then move on to BATF who also wastes our money and infringes on our rights, IRS, the great abuser of the taxpayer, and finally DEA who consumes billions on the continuation of their so-called war on drugs (tell me again how successful this is?). Anybody else think of others?

Kenneth Creech

January 30, 2010

68.221.103.174

Votes: +0

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...

There should be only one year between presidential elections when laws could be actually initiated. The other three should be spent thinking about any possible unintended consequences. Perhaps we would have a better outcome from all the money we spend on the three branches of our government. Maybe even time to read the bill for slow learners!!

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