A chance to really clear the air

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:04 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED NOV. 11, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
A chance to really clear the air

Though it can be unwise to predict the court's stance based solely on the justices' questions, it was a fairly bad sign when members of the U.S. Supreme Court expressed skepticism Tuesday about the idea that government regulators might consider the costs -- not just the purported health benefits -- of new clean air regulations.

The court was hearing oral arguments in the twin cases Browner vs. American Trucking Associations and American Trucking Associations vs. Browner, in which the truckers -- and a host of business groups filing amicus briefs -- seek to restrict the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to set and enforce "clean air" standards which many contend are virtually "plucked from thin air," without firm scientific evidence as to the (supposedly minuscule) levels at which soot and ozone actually cause health damage.

The truckers' clear implication? Although the air is now clean by any historical standard, the EPA keeps setting arbitrary, ever-lower limits just to keep itself in business.

In the course of this suit -- a ruling is expected next July -- the court could also decide, finally, the extent to which Congress is free to delegate to non-elected bureaucrats the power to make up such laws, under a vague edict like the one which now instructs the EPA to protect the public health "with an adequate margin of safety."

Obviously, OSHA, the FCC, and numerous other Washington regulatory storm troopers will feel the chill if the court rules that Congress must actually "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper," as required by the Constitution -- not merely give unelected bureaucrats carte blanche to dream them up as they go along.

That's why the friends of the court -- filing briefs on the truckers' side -- now include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Manufacturers Alliance, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Association of Physicians and Surgeons, and even the American Farm Bureau and American Crop Protection Association.

"Every one of these businesses undoubtedly has its own weird, can-you--believe-this story to tell about trying to decipher, adhere to and then pay for a Washington regulation," editorialized the Wall Street Journal in its coverage of the case this week.

Solicitor General Seth Waxman asked the justices Tuesday to reverse a lower court ruling that said the EPA went too far in adopting tougher clean-air standards in 1997. The appeals court said the EPA overstepped its authority by interpreting the Clean Air Act's 1990 amendments "so loosely" that it amounted to unlawful delegation of Congress' power. The lower court said the EPA's interpretation left it free to set almost any standard.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked how broad the agency's authority reaches when it sets air-pollution limits. "How do you decide how much risk is too much risk, or is that just up to the agency?" Scalia asked Waxman. "You still haven't given me a criterion of where you stop."

But Scalia also challenged the assertion of Edward Warren, attorney for the truckers, that a cost-benefit analysis would necessarily set any clearer standard. "Why does it give you a standard to address the economic effects of the thing?" he asked.

"I've listened to a lot of vague language from you and I don't understand what it is you're saying," added an equally skeptical Sandra Day O'Connor.

Not since 1935 has the Supreme Court thrown out any set of federal regulations on grounds that Congress improperly handed an agency too much power. But the Constitution is clear -- federal laws are supposed to be deliberated in detail and enacted by our elected representatives themselves, not handed off the way a distracted socialite orders the nanny to bathe the children and put them to bed so she won't be late for the hors d'oeuvres.

To blithely rule that Congress has the power to "delegate" unlimited lawmaking authority to anyone it pleases would set a dangerous precedent indeed -- didn't the members of the first French republican assembly eventually "delegate" all their powers to Robespierre, and finally to the dictator Napoleon? Didn't the German Reichstag "delegate" all its powers to Chancellor Hitler ... eventually finding so little left to do that it closed down entirely?

The EPA is an agency of the presidential branch. And the job of the Supreme Court is to make sure the balance of powers between the branches is maintained -- not to allow it to tumble into tyranny merely because the representatives in their laziness "sign off" on the arrangement.

If the 535 members of Congress don't have time to personally read, analyze, debate, and raise their hands to endorse each paragraph of the thousands of pages of new regulations pouring forth from the malarial marshlands of the Potomac every month, the answer is clear: Reject what you cannot wade through! Repeal the stuff en masse! Break out the marshmallows, and have a bonfire!

How are citizens supposed to understand and obey laws so numerous, intricate, costly, and incomprehensible that our delegates themselves cringe at the thought of merely being required to read them?

And so the court should rule.

(The cases are Browner vs. American Trucking Associations, 99-1257, and American Trucking Associations vs. Browner, 99-1426.)

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and editor of Financial Privacy Report (subscribe by calling Norman at 612-895-8757.) His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair