Along with their comrades over on MSNBC, CNN became unmoored Thursday morning in their reactions to the Supreme Court dealing a blow to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority in regulating greenhouse gas emissions, arguing the Court doesn’t want to save Earth by “addressing climate change” and leveled “a blow” to the “administrative state.”
Justice correspondent Jessica Schneider lamented the ruling was “really a blow to the Biden administration and the EPA moving forward” and “major takedown of the administration” in that they won’t be able to “broadly regulate power plants” as well as rob agencies of being “given carte blanche to regulate.”
Fresh out of law school, CNN Newsroom co-host Poppy Harlow asked national correspondent Renee Marsh to “talk to people about the actual implications of this” since, on the same day of oral arguments, “the U.N...said any further delay in addressing climate change will miss a brief and closing window of opportunity to secure a livable, sustainable future for all.”
Marsh was not on the same level as colleague Bill “F***sticks” Weir, but she was still firmly in Chicken Little territory as she implied the ruling will prevent the EPA from thwarting the affects of “climate change here” and “now” in the form of droughts, flooding, heat waves, and wildfires.
“[W]hat this ruling does is it takes away the most effective tool for the EPA to curb those greenhouses gases and that is emissions from these power plants,” she added.
Marsh also lamented the ruling was the equivalent of the Supreme Court “saying you can cut the grass but we're taking away your lawnmower, so get out your scissors, EPA.”
Showing no concern for our constitutional republic, Marsh decried the idea that the EPA couldn’t take steps it would deem necessary to change how Americans live their lives (click “expand”):
MARSH: The EPA has been — has had this posture that they will find ways to continue to curb greenhouse gases, but I have to say this is — it makes it just very difficult for them to do this job of curbing these gases in such a dramatic way that scientists have been sounding the alarm that we need to do and not like over the next 25 years, like, right now. And so, this makes it more difficult. And Poppy —
HARLOW: Yeah?
MARSH: — the one other thing I want to mention is just the idea of giving this authority to Congress. I mean, we have seen what that — what that looks like and we have seen what that means. Just look at the Biden administration's climate legislation. It has been stalled within Congress.
HARLOW: That — yeah.
MARSH: So this idea of giving Congress the authority to me is the equivalent of not doing anything —
HARLOW: Anything.
MARSH: — because you certainly have seen that there's not enough political will there to get that sort of drastic and dramatic regulation over the line, Poppy.
HARLOW: That is such a good point.
Going to chief legal analyst and genitalia fondler Jeffrey Toobin, Harlow also framed congressional action and inaction in terms of a liberal wish list: “Congress does have the ability to codify an abortion right, for example. Congress does have the ability to explicitly say the EPA can regulate on issues of climate change. It just hasn't acted.”
Toobin also had a case of the sads, griping that the notion of restoring power to the legislative branch was “a feature, not a bug” of “conservatives in the Federalist Society” and the conservative-leaning justices to ensure climate change isn’t dealt with.
“[B]ecause the climate is an international crisis, and when the Court says the only agency that has the expertise and ability to address climate change can't do it, it means that it will not be done by anyone or any part of government,” he added.
Longtime Court observer Joan Biskupic was also in the throes of negativity, lamenting the Supreme Court’s been “stripping regulatory authority from the federal government” while many have been “focused...on what this Court has done to individual rights, especially with abortion.”
Sounding Tom Nichols-like in calling for bureaucrats to control our lives, Biskupic said it’s been “a major emphasis” of “the three Trump appointees” to strip power from those with “expertise in certain areas — you know, environment, public safety, labor issues...that Congress lacks.”
CNN political director David Chalian had more Team Biden talking points, gushing that “President Biden is an institutionalist at heart,” so the Court’s rulings have left him in a state of “real concern” because they’re “not..in line with the views of the American people.”
Speaking of the EPA ruling, Chalian complained that “the ruling...really sort of put handcuffs on the Biden administration to attack what is one of the major priorities of this presidency.”
After a break, Harlow and University of Texas’s Steve Vladeck wondered if Thursday’s ruling spells doom for ensuring that food plants are inspected for cleanliness and safety (click “expand”):
HARLOW: [T]he big question that Jessica put out there, which is exactly the right one, is what is a major question now? And the major questions doctrine has now three times this term tied the hands of agencies —
VLADECK: Yeah
HARLOW: — like OHSA from being able to have a vaccine mandate, like the CDC from having an eviction moratorium and now from the EPA to do things to mitigate climate change. Is this — what — what isn't a big question? I mean, going forward, looking to next term, does the major questions doctrine now dictate what agencies can and can't do?
VLADECK: Poppy, the answer is yes, and I think it's not an overstatement to suggest that this is a cataclysm for the modern administrative state, not necessarily because every question is a major question, but because that can be litigated in every single case. You know, the U.S. Department of Agriculture creates inspection standards for food plants. Is that a major question? We might not think so, but if we're talking about beef, how many Americans consume beef? What a major question, Poppy, is what a judge says it is and that opens the door for not just the Supreme Court, but for lower Court judges now to turn around —
HARLOW: Right.
VLADECK: — and look at every single feature of federal administrative regulation and say, oh, this delegation's not sufficiently specific because this is a major question.
CNN’s meltdown over an unelected bureaucracy being able to exert full control over your life was made possible thanks to advertisers such as IHOP and ServPro. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from June 30, click here.
