The Justices Send a Message to Congress

The EPA case doesn’t preclude climate rules. It require lawmakers to enact them.

By Kimberley A. Strassel. Excerpts:

"Sweep away the opinion’s numbing technical descriptions, and the ruling is a joy to read. The six conservatives on the court, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, have officially declared the “major questions doctrine”—a concept that has appeared in a handful of past court decisions—to be a living, breathing principle. The federal bureaucracy is no longer allowed to impose programs of major “economic and political significance” on the country absent “clear congressional authorization.” Hallelujah.

That’s a bummer for the executive branch—and its army of bureaucrats—which for decades has been acting as if it were king. In this case, the Obama administration was frustrated Congress wouldn’t enact a law empowering it to regulate climate emissions. So it magicked up the authority out of the 1970 Clean Air Act. Democratic administrations in particular are growing brazen in delegating to themselves these new superpowers. The Biden team last year in litigation insisted there existed in a 77-year-old law the authority to impose an eviction moratorium. Just as it found permission in a 51-year-old law to impose a vaccine mandate on the nation’s workforce. The high court struck down both and—just in case Mr. Biden didn’t get the hint—used this week’s EPA decision to lay out stricter rules going forward.

But it’s equally a bummer for Congress, which was essentially just told by the court to get off its lazy backside and resume the people’s work. It’s easy to bash the administrative state, but bureaucrats are simply filling a vacuum created by a legislature that these days can rouse itself to little more than naming a post office. “Federal agencies must have the authority to regulate carbon!” every Democrat wailed in response to this week’s ruling. To which the obvious response is: Then give it to them! Pass a law. Do your job."