Act Two: Answering the Clear Mandate for Vigorous Oversight
For two years, President Trump has attempted to steer federal policy in ways that undercut core American values. His vision of government – to the extent one can divine a coherent vision – lacks compassion, fairness, a commitment to equal voice and opportunity, and concern for the long-term threats that families and communities cannot address on their own. Instead, the president has embarked on a campaign to remake the core institutions of our democracy in a new, authoritarian mold. And along the way, he has set an expectation for his administration that its agenda and his personal political and financial aspirations carry more weight than the rule of law.
Tuesday's midterms showed that Americans are tired of Congress rubber-stamping the president's actions and letting his mean-spirited rhetoric become normalized. The newly minted Democratic majority in the House of Representatives will be sworn in in early January with a mandate to push back.
To what end will Democrats pursue the vigorous oversight agenda that they have promised? Here's an idea: How about focusing on the future? The Trump administration has turned its back on children in alarming ways. Family separations at the Mexican border, efforts to eliminate or undercut the Affordable Care Act's …
This post was originally published on SCOTUSblog. It is republished here under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US). Click here to read Professor Zellmer's follow-up analysis of the opinion in this case.
Alaska hunter John Sturgeon is asking the Supreme Court to slam the door on the National Park Service's ability to apply its nationwide hovercraft ban to the Nation River within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve. Sturgeon's attorney, Matthew Findley, told the justices during oral argument yesterday that the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act prevents the Park Service — but not other federal agencies — from exercising authority over waters in park units in Alaska.
This is the second time the justices have had to wrestle with a section of ANILCA entitled "maps," situated within a title that specifies Congress' purposes, provides definitions and addresses boundary maps and land management status …
The meeting logs for the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) – the small but powerful bureau that oversees federal rulemaking efforts on behalf of the president – have looked a little different in recent weeks. As usual, they are graced by high-priced corporate lobbyists and attorneys from white-shoe law firms, along with a smattering of activists from public interest organizations. But also signing in have been nearly a dozen ordinary Americans, representing only themselves, and they've been there to express their views on one rule: the Department of Education's proposal to weaken existing federal measures aimed at addressing sexual assaults on college campuses.
The draft proposal, which has been a top of priority of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos the last few months, is attracting considerable controversy. It overturns several decades' worth of federal policy on the issue of sexual misconduct at federally funded educational institutions …
This post was originally published on SCOTUSblog. It is republished here under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 US).
The Supreme Court heard oral argument yesterday morning in Virginia Uranium Inc. v. Warren, which concerns the largest uranium deposit in the United States, located in south-central Virginia. The petitioners are owners of the deposit who wish to mine uranium, and they are challenging a 1983 statute by which the Virginia General Assembly imposed a moratorium on uranium mining. Although all parties agree that uranium mining is a matter for state regulation, the owners contend that the moratorium was impermissibly intended to regulate radiation safety associated with uranium milling and tailings management — a field pre-empted by the Atomic Energy Act. The case therefore raises questions about the extent to which a state legislature's motives are relevant to deciding whether the state statute is pre-empted.
Arguing for …
Climate change is having significant effects on the ocean. Sea levels are rising. The ocean is becoming warmer, and because the ocean absorbs chemically reactive carbon dioxide, its pH is dropping. Hurricanes, typhoons, and other coastal storms are becoming stronger on average. Marine species are on the move, generally shifting toward the poles and, to a lesser extent, deeper. Coral reefs are dying.
Clearly, the climate impacts on the ocean are cause for concern. Between 2013 and 2016, the ocean along United States' west coast experienced a three-year surge of hot water that National Geographic dubbed "The Blob that Cooked the Pacific." Perhaps most fittingly, on Halloween 2018, Nature published a new study indicating that the ocean is warming 60 percent more per year than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had projected.
So, yes, there is cause for serious concern. And it's not …
This post was originally published on ACSblog, the blog of the American Constitution Society. Reprinted with permission.
On October 26, 2018, the comment period ended for a new rule that guts U.S. fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. If the final rule resembles the proposed rule, the Safer Affordable Fuel-Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles Rule for Model Years 2021-2026 Passenger Cars and Light Trucks (SAFE Vehicles Rule) will lock in old fuel efficiency standards, reversing Obama administration regulations mandating increased efficiency. Specifically, the "preferred alternative" expressed by the Trump administration's EPA is to keep 2020 standards for both passenger vehicles and light trucks through 2026, replacing current regulations that required enhanced efficiency during the six-year period. Further, the rule proposes to remove California's existing authorization to regulate carbon emissions from cars, preempting both California's regulation and other states that have adopted standards identical to California's.
This blunt about-face in …
This op-ed originally ran in the Bay Journal. Reprinted with permission.
Recent extreme weather — Hurricanes Harvey and Florence — caused widespread toxic contamination of floodwaters after low-lying chemical plants, coal ash storage facilities and hog waste lagoons were inundated.
Such storm-driven chemical disasters demonstrate that state water pollution permitting programs are overdue for reforms that account for stronger and more intense hurricanes and heavy rainfall events, sea level rise and extreme heat.
As the District of Columbia and the states in the Chesapeake Bay watershed prepare their final watershed implementation plans for cleaning up the Bay, two important lessons should be clear from the recent disasters: First, climate change will greatly complicate Bay cleanup efforts and must therefore be factored into planning. Second, the state regulation of pollution sources can and should be a critical component of the plan.
The potential pollution implications of climate change are many …
