{"id":19889,"date":"2016-02-11T11:12:47","date_gmt":"2016-02-11T19:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=19889"},"modified":"2016-02-11T11:16:07","modified_gmt":"2016-02-11T19:16:07","slug":"scrotus-is-teabuggering-our-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/11\/scrotus-is-teabuggering-our-environment\/","title":{"rendered":"SCROTUS Is TEAbuggering Our Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Whenever we make the slightest bit of progress to benefit the American people, you can bet that the Fascist Five Republican Injustices of SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) will step in to protect corporate crime and 0.1% profit.&nbsp; In this case they are blocking implementation of the Clean Power Plan, a small, necessary step to reduce the effects if global climate change.<\/font><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"0211corporate-supreme-court\" border=\"0\" height=\"406\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/0211corporate-supreme-court.jpg\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto\" title=\"0211corporate-supreme-court\" width=\"650\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court&rsquo;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/orders\/courtorders\/020916zr4_4g15.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">extraordinary decision<\/a> on Tuesday to temporarily block the Obama administration&rsquo;s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from power plants was deeply disturbing on two fronts.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/SCOTUS3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" align=\"left\" alt=\"SCOTUS3\" border=\"0\" height=\"294\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/SCOTUS3_thumb.jpg\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" title=\"SCOTUS3\" width=\"360\" \/><\/a>It raised serious questions about America&rsquo;s ability to deliver on Mr. Obama&rsquo;s pledge in Paris<\/strong> in December to sharply reduce carbon emissions, and, inevitably, about its willingness to take a leadership role on the issue.<\/p>\n<p>And with all the Republican-appointed justices lining up in a 5-to-4 vote to halt the regulation before a federal appeals court could rule on it, the court also reinforced the belief among many Americans that the court is knee-deep in the partisan politics it claims to stand above. While the court&rsquo;s action was not a ruling on the merits of the case, it will delay efforts to comply with the regulation and sends an ominous signal that Mr. Obama&rsquo;s initiative, known as the Clean Power Plan, could ultimately be overturned.<\/p>\n<p>The Clean Power Plan, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency last August, requires states to make major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from their electricity producers, which chiefly use older coal-fired power plants, over the next few years. These plants produce more carbon emissions than any other source, and cutting them is the backbone of Mr. Obama&rsquo;s larger goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions over all by at least 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.<\/p>\n<p>The rule is based on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/03\/23\/opinion\/clean-air-act-and-dirty-coal-at-the-supreme-court.html\" target=\"_blank\">Clean Air Act<\/a> &mdash; which, as the court has already made clear in multiple cases, <strong>gives the federal government broad authority to regulate a range of pollutants, including carbon emissions from power plants<\/strong>. Mr. Obama is using that authority here. And while the plan sets out aggressive state-by-state goals, it is carefully designed to give states the time and flexibility to meet them. It&rsquo;s inevitable that some, perhaps many, older coal-fired plants will close; but states can also convert to cleaner-burning natural gas, build renewable-energy sources, like wind and solar, or enter into regional &ldquo;cap and trade&rdquo; programs that allow them to buy and sell permits to pollute&hellip; [<em>emphasis added<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Inserted from &lt;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/11\/opinion\/the-court-blocks-efforts-to-slow-climate-change.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>&gt;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Just to reiterate, The Supreme Court has already made it clear that the Executive branch does have the authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants.&nbsp; SCROTUS will have to overturn their own overwhelming precedent to defeat the measure long term.&nbsp; Instead, I think this is a temporary measure designed to sabotage Obama&rsquo;s foreign policy and to undermine the Paris Climate Accord.&nbsp; I hope our international partners will take a wait and see attitude and not abandon the Accord over this.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whenever we make the slightest bit of progress to benefit the American people, you can bet that the Fascist Five Republican Injustices of SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) will step in to protect corporate crime and 0.1% profit.&nbsp; In this case they are blocking implementation of the Clean Power Plan, a small, necessary step to reduce <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/02\/11\/scrotus-is-teabuggering-our-environment\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}