For decades, Americans have lived under a tyranny of unelected bureaucrats. In Trump 2.0, the power of the deep state has been significantly curtailed. But there are still redoubts of unaccountable pencil pushers in the federal government, perhaps nowhere more present than in the Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA was created to enforce federal laws, not write new ones. Yet, under Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, the agency has been used to impose radical policy changes that Congress never approved.
From vehicle emissions standards that effectively dictate what Americans can drive to regulations designed to clandestinely reshape the nation’s energy system, the EPA has repeatedly sought to accomplish leftist priorities through bureaucratic regulation rather than formal legislation.
Concerns over executive agency overreach are at the heart of a new bill introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga. The End EPA Abuse Act seeks to reaffirm a basic constitutional principle: Congress makes the laws, and federal agencies enforce them under the direction of the president.
This new legislation would prohibit EPA regulations that effectively eliminate gas-powered vehicles or force nationwide transitions to Democrats’ favored energy sources. More broadly, it prevents regulators from twisting decades-old statutes to suit present-day political goals.
Lawmakers must stand before voters and answer for the decisions they make, thus, they are held accountable. Unelected, appointed bureaucrats do not face that same accountability and are free to act with impunity.
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Major policy decisions have shifted away from elected representatives and toward bloated administrative agencies, resulting in a system where the most consequential decisions about energy, transportation, and economics are made by people voters cannot elect, name, or remove.
The EPA exemplifies that problem. Agency officials have repeatedly attempted to reinterpret the Clean Air Act to justify powers Congress never explicitly granted the EPA. Policies that could not survive the legislative process are instead crammed through executive agencies—guarded from public oversight by a daunting gauntlet of bureaucratic chaos.
So long as agencies possess broad authority to reinterpret existing laws, Americans are left endlessly fighting the same battle. One regulation may be overturned in court, only for a slightly different version to emerge later under a new administration. The underlying issue is a regulatory framework maze that lacks a beginning or an end.
Recognizing that challenge, the End EPA Abuse Act includes a broader safeguard prohibiting Clean Air Act regulations that would significantly expand the EPA administrator’s authority beyond what Congress intended.
The End EPA Abuse Act reflects a necessary effort to restore democratic accountability and give a hitherto docile Congress new weapons to resist executive encroachment. If the U.S. is going to phase out gas-powered vehicles, or radically alter the nation’s energy system, those decisions should be debated and approved by elected representatives who can face the consequences of those actions at the ballot box.
In a constitutional republic, major policy decisions should be made by officials accountable to the people, not by unelected bureaucrats whose power grows further removed from voter control with each passing year.
That is the essence of representative government. The people act as a check on legislative power by rewarding or replacing their elected leaders. When agencies can effectively make law by reinterpreting old statutes to fit new political goals, voters lose their voice and government drifts further from the consent of the governed.
The End EPA Abuse Act is not a panacea to the administrative state, but it’s a start. Reining in the EPA is one step toward restoring a simple principle that Washington has too often forgotten: The people, not the bureaucrats, rule.
Read the first chapter of The Woketopus right now for FREE
Today, even with President Trump’s victory, leftist elites have their tentacles in every aspect of our government.
The Daily Signal’s own Tyler O’Neil exposes this leftist cabal in his new book, The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government.
In this book, O’Neil reveals how the Left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
You can read the first chapter of this new book for FREE in this eBook, The Woketopus: Chapter One using the secure link below.
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