There’s been a lot of talk about Republican plans to subject the Obama administration to strict oversight once the new GOP House majority takes office. Most of the discussion has focused on Rep. Darrell Issa, head of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, which is the main panel charged with keeping the administration in line. “I’m going to be doing a lot of investigating,” says Issa.
That’s true, but it’s also true that some of the most intense action will be elsewhere. Two key areas on which Republicans plan to keep a close eye are Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ implementation of the new national health care law and Environmental Protection Agency head Lisa Jackson’s work to unilaterally regulate carbon emissions. Both fall under the oversight of the House Energy and Commerce Committee — a panel so important that the famed Democratic Rottweiler Rep. Henry Waxman left the Oversight Committee to chair it — and both will be the subject of extensive oversight next year.
[…]
As far as Obamacare is concerned, Sebelius and her staff at HHS are writing far-reaching regulations that will govern state health care exchanges, the amount of money insurers must devote to coverage versus overhead, and which medical procedures are covered by various rules and which are exempt. Right now, the current Democratic Congress is giving Sebelius a free hand. Look for that to change.
It’s not clear whether the administration is prepared for scrutiny. At his postelection news conference, President Obama said he might agree to “tweak and make improvements on the progress that we’ve made” on health care. But he gave no indication that he is willing to rethink any major part of the national health care bill. For her part, Sebelius was asked last month how she would deal with Republican efforts to cripple the health care law. “First, we can win the elections,” she answered. Now, she’ll need another plan.
Then there’s the EPA. In his postelection news conference, Obama declared his preferred vehicle for carbon emissions regulation, a cap-and-trade system, dead for the foreseeable future. Then he was asked: What about the EPA regulating carbon on its own?
“Cap-and-trade was just one way of skinning the cat,” the president answered. “It was not the only way. It was a means, not an end. And I’m going to be looking for other means to address this problem.” Translation: The administration will pursue a program to achieve the goals of cap-and-trade without a specific cap-and-trade structure. If Obama does that, he’ll get a fight from the GOP.
Republicans are hampered by a Supreme Court decision allowing the EPA to treat simple carbon dioxide as a deadly pollutant (a decision lawmakers hope to overturn by legislation). But the GOP can pressure the agency on specific policies, and it can also fight proposed agency regulations that deal with ozone levels, the handling of coal ash, and other issues that affect thousands of jobs, as well as energy prices for millions of Americans. […]
The fight against Obamacare and far-reaching environmental regulations will spread across several committees and involve the entire Republican leadership. In the end, the GOP’s goal is not just to oversee — it is to reverse Obama’s agenda, especially on health care.
Some quick observations: The SCOTUS decision gave the EPA power to claim CO2 as a pollutant. It doesn’t enshrine in law the idea that CO2 is a pollutant. Without which, trees couldn’t survive. But so it goes.
That CO2 wasn’t considered a pollutant during other administrations — as determined by the same science — clearly suggests that we’ve now as a matter of law decided it okay to politicize “science”.
To me, this was a kind of legal punt, but until the science is settled — and it really can’t be, though the preponderance of evidence can certainly be scrutinized — the ruling at least makes a modicum of sense: with the question still open, at least in theory, the EPA can chose to act (or not) on the basis of the current science as they read it.
But this same opening allows for the legislature to propose a law or set of laws that prevent the EPA from overreaching in the absence of settled science, with the legislature then defining what appropriate EPA engagements.
With respect to Obamacare, I suggest that video from the hearings be broken down by conservatives into YouTube-sized excerpts, so that we can go around the mainstream media filter and show clearly who is charged with running this monstrosity, what they believe, and so on.
Anything less than circumventing backdoor cap-and-trade and repealing (or defunding, in the interim) the bulk of Obamacare, would be a failure — and a rebuke to voters who ushered so many Republicans, whom they still don’t much trust, back into power.
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related.
I agree with the Youtube strategy. The House also needs to identify areas where Sebelius and crew are going astray and bring them to the floor for a vote; make the Dems own every bit of it.
As far as Obamacare is concerned, Sebelius and her staff at HHS are writing far-reaching regulations that will govern state health care exchanges, the amount of money insurers must devote to coverage versus overhead, and which medical procedures are covered by various rules and which are exempt.
This, right here, is the reason that the U.S. Federal government has expanded it’s power beyond all control. The Congress – Republicans and Democrats alike – have created organizations like the EPA or HHS and then handed them the keys. They create them with broad guidelines and then leave it to them to write and enforce regulations that then have the force of law but have never had an elected official vote on them. The legislative branch has handed the executive branch it’s power.
From Why Liberalism Is Dangerous by William Voegeli
the EPA promotes “policy without jobs”
Cherchez le femme.
Here he is.
Apart from encouraging the fight between Congress and the Executive, we should also encourage our states and local officials to push back against federal overreach. Just think about how little the EPA or HHS would get done if every new initiative got tied up by 20 states filing suit against enforcement actions.
Yes, I’m promoting lawfare. I’m not proud.
Or, how about if states simply ignore the EPA and do what they want?
What De Tocqueville saw:
Time was, it was. Time is, it’s fallen into disuse somewhat.
The EPA thinks they’re the IRS – a law unto themselves. I can only imagine the kind of sanctions they’d try to impose. Although with a GOP House, enforcing their rulings may be a might difficult, the GOP will no always have oversight. Permanently reining in this rogue Agency is what is needed, if not dismantling it altogether (all of the States already have their own environmental laws and regulations, so it is redundant in the first place).
“not” always have oversight…
What exactly are the checks and balances to Federal agencies and czars? The IRS has powers that nobody would consider constitutional. Congress better stop giving away any more power than they already have at this time.
Congress better stop giving away more power than Congress ever had. Ever.
That’s true. It’s very hard to find any members of any government giving up power once they have it. I can’t think of too many politicians who would just walk away like Washington. Still, at least members of congress face election every two years. It’s the giant agencies that never seem to have to deal with their mistakes.
At this point, Congressional funding.
Until the courts order Congress to fully fund these unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies, that is.
At this point, Congressional funding.
I wouldn’t mind seeing that supplemented with a little reassertion of State sovereignty.
Squid, look for a stunning boom in Squid brand pitchfork sales, should it ever come to “the courts order Congress to fully fund etc.”
Whereupon, not a few judges will be heard to wonder aloud, “What is the hay here these folks are intending to pitch?”
consider squid™ brand pitchforks this holiday season
Doesn’t the Constitution require that all spending bills come from the House?
Oh, right. The Constitution. I crack myself up sometimes.
…until the science is settled — and it really can’t be, though the preponderance of evidence can certainly be scrutinized…
Even if one (naively, in my view) regards climatology as a hard science that generally provides factual answers to specific questions, the question of what constitutes a pollutant can never be scientifically settled, because it isn’t a scientific question. Literally any substance can be a pollutant, depending on the frame of reference, and most substances generally deemed as pollutants are substances that do occur naturally somewhere and in some concentration. Human activity merely alters the location and/or concentration, thus turning a natural substance into a pollutant according to some standard which can only be subjective. The answer here isn’t to wait for science to settle on the question of whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant. That intrinsically is not, and can never be, a scientific question. It’s a subjective policy question, one which scientific data can perhaps provide some background toward resolving. The answer is for Congress to affirmatively distinguish objective science from subjective policy by rewriting the EPA charter such that the EPA is prohibited from regulating the use or discharge of any substance without explicit and specific authorization from Congress, for that substance. The best answer would perhaps be to dissolve the EPA, but that’s probably implausible.
“The best answer would perhaps be to dissolve the EPA, but that’s probably implausible.” Hydrofluoric acid should do just fine.
Aqua regia. We could tell ’em it’s because they’re like royalty.
bumblefuckonomics… discourage investment in new or modified power plants or other industrial facilities.
He hates the jobs.
Obamanomics
Doot dooooo do-doo-doo