They are not popular. But they have power. And they’ll use it. The GOP congress wants to use a Gingrich-penned law to roll back Obama-era regulations on overtime rules, corporate taxes, and, of course, greenhouse gas emissions.
Here’s the killer part — literally:
Another reason: If Congress uses it to successfully overturn a regulation, the agency is barred from ever again issuing rules that closely match what lawmakers rejected — unless Congress passes new legislation permitting the agency to do so.
As Curtis Copeland, one of Washington’s foremost experts on the CRA, put it, this is a legislative tool that salts the earth behind it.
That could be just what the current Republican Congress has in mind.
“If they don’t want climate change regulations to be issued in the future, what better way than using the Congressional Review Act,” said Copeland, on the law at the Congress’s think tank, the Congressional Research Service.
My emphasis. Quite a metaphor. It really casts how blatantly evil this tactic is.
This is why I don’t see Trump as a particular outlier, or that our current propaganda state as anything new. We have — and have had — one of the major parties of our country actively steering us towards utter climate disaster. They’ve been told the facts, and given a wide variety of possible strategies to deal with them. And they’re doing the opposite. It is suicidal insanity. And they are trying to lock in our fate. By the time they are made to pay any political price for it, it may be too late to act.
There are still a few Republican Senators left who at least claim not to deny climate science. If you have friends and family in Maine (Sen. Collins), South Carolina (Graham), Arizona (McCain), Alaska (Murkowski), might be a good time to get in touch and have them give a phone call to preserve the Clean Power Plan, methane release regs, and so forth.
The future is not yet written.
Christopher says
I’m a big believer in the notion that you are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Propaganda has been around for ever, but it feels like we currently are at a unique moment where facts don’t matter and too many Americans can’t or won’t sort it out. Fake news gets generated and many fall for it. The founding generation did put some checks on mobocracy, but they believed an enlightened and virtuous citizenry was more or less capable of governing themselves. In fact, such a citizenry was sine qua non for self government. Does anyone else feel as though we have amazingly slipped BACKWARDS in that department?
sabutai says
The problem was always that a smart citizenry could stand in the way of things. So distract them with entertainment, terrorize them with a precarious economy, and deprive them of education in citizenship and history (through lambasting colleges and emphasizing tests in K-12).
fredrichlariccia says
is ‘to eradicate FDR government.’ Heritage Foundation speech on 12/12/16
Meaning ALL safety nets — Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare, Medicaid —and public services that improve ordinary American lives.
God help us.
Fred Rich LaRiccia