Repercussions of killing the Chevron defense

The US Air Force is refusing to obey an EPA requirement to clean up one of its toxic messes that has gone out of control. The Air Force argues that the June 28, 2024 USSC decision in Loper Bright Enterprises to kill the Chevron defense allows it to ignore the EPA. The Chevron defense is what gave executive agencies the power to enforce their regulations and compliance requirements. Balls and Strikes reports: 

Deadly Polluters Think the Supreme Court

Just Gave Them a Free Pass

The justices have made clear that they don’t take administrative agencies seriously. Now, the entities regulated by those agencies are saying they don’t have to listen, either

For decades, the U.S. Air Force has been using and disposing of chemicals at an industrial manufacturing plant it owns near Tucson, Arizona. These substances, some of which are known as “forever chemicals” due to their long lifespans and extraordinary resistance to degradation, have now seeped into the groundwater underneath the Air Force facility.

Exposure to even low levels of these chemicals can have adverse effects on the human body, including damage to the liver, kidneys, and immune and cardiovascular systems. And in Tucson, the concentrations are thousands of times higher than the maximum contaminant levels allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency. To make matters worse, there’s currently no system in place to contain or treat the contamination, which allows the chemicals to migrate into the city’s main source of drinking water.

Earlier this year, the EPA concluded that conditions in Tucson “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to the health of persons.” And in May, pursuant to its authority to enforce the Safe Drinking Water Act, the EPA ordered the Air Force to abate the hazard it created, or face the possibility of paying tens of thousands of dollars in civil penalties.

But yesterday, The Guardian reported that the Air Force is refusing to comply with the EPA’s order, claiming that the Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo means it doesn’t have to. According to The Guardian, the Air Force’s response to the EPA cites Loper Bright as evidence that “the EPA’s order can not withstand review.”

Judicial review isn’t actually on the table here—one arm of the executive branch can’t sue another—so the White House would eventually resolve this disagreement in-house. But if it sides with the Air Force, the Air Force will presumably continue to not take responsibility for the deadly pollution it caused. Even more ominously, in future cases where private-sector companies don’t feel like following the law, the Air Force may set an example for these other polluters to follow.  

“We don’t have to clean up our mess” is a pretty audacious conclusion to draw from Loper Bright, a case in which the Supreme Court’s Republican supermajority overturned a 40-year-old case called Chevron v. NRDC. Under Chevron, if there was ambiguity about how an administrative agency should apply a law enacted by Congress, courts would defer to the agency’s interpretation of its own authority, so long as that interpretation was “reasonable.” For decades, this approach left technical, policy-driven questions to politically accountable experts, rather than unaccountable federal judges who don’t know their nitrogen oxide from their laughing gas.  

Now that the Court has overruled Chevron, judges are free to second-guess administrative agencies willy-nilly.  

While the Air Force’s ambitious interpretation of Loper Bright may be sloppy, it’s also predictable. The Supreme Court has made clear, over and over, that judges don’t have to listen to administrative agencies, so now, entities regulated by those administrative agencies are saying they don’t have to listen, either. They feel empowered to ignore regulations they don’t want to follow because they know the conservative-packed courts don’t want to enforce them against anyone. When lawbreaking polluters are given inches, they take miles.

It is unclear if the Air Force will be able to get away with just dumping poison all over and then ignoring it. That will be up to the president, not the federal courts. 

However, with the USSC currently vehemently hostile to federal government power to regulate much of anything, if anything, this Air Force stunt very likely will encourage private companies to try the same thing with some regulation or another. The point is to start the legal process of whittling away at regulations that federal agencies have put in place. It is reasonable to think that the people in the Air Force could be MAGA authoritarians who knowingly did this precisely to jump start lawsuits to eat away at federal regulations. That assumes that the lawsuits have not already started.

The ramifications of recent decisions from the radicalized Republican USSC are just beginning to be felt. The damage and carnage will continue for years. We are witnessing (i) our democracy crumble and die, and (ii) its replacement by some toxic form of kleptocratic radical right authoritarianism.

When you take time away from politics.........

 ........... and then return to discover there is a new candidate for the Democratic party, and not one I expected, and a renewed energy among liberals and progressives.

Will this now turn the tide? I am optimistic that it will. Especially if our good friend Germaine keeps posting threads warning us of the dire consequences of another Trump term.

It's nice to see the enthusiasm and upbeat approach now being taken by the MSM and the Harris campaign. We could ALL use a bit of that infection and start being more upbeat ourselves.

The picking of Walz, though initially a shock when I heard about it, has really energized liberals as well. What a refreshing individual. AND YES, I DO REALIZE the Right will do everything possible to knock him down.

I have argued in the past, and will continue to argue, that we on the left allow the right to have too much control over our feelings. We are ALWAYS trying so hard to counter their narrative, that we have been slow in developing our own.

The Harris/Walz ticket seems to have changed that. Now THEY are forced to respond to our narrative instead of us responding to theirs.

My absence over the summer was also refreshing in many ways. One way, was being able to avoid the news and all the anxieties of partisan politics. Well, for the most part anyways. I did, from time to time, peak in here and on my forum to see what people were talking about.

Makes me wonder, if we all could use a "vacation" from the news and narratives and mud-slinging and anxieties caused by our political discourse?

I for one, will remain optimistic. My optimism I realize could be crushed depending on what happens in November. But for now............

Let's all take try n shake off the gloom and doom and try a bit of optimism for a change.

Whatcha all think? 

Recent history: How Ronald Reagan got Israel to stop ongoing slaughter

This is about some history well worth knowing. In the past, the US used its power to get Israel to stop an ongoing military conflict. A NYT article (not paywalled) discusses some of the events on Aug. 12-13, 1982 regarding the power of a US president to stop an ongoing Israeli military action:

Chronology of Crisis About 6 A.M. (midnight Wednesday, New York time) - Israelis begin bombing west Beirut. As raids continue, Lebanon's Prime Minister, Shafik al-Wazzan, tells Philip C. Habib, the special American envoy, that the talks cannot continue.

2 P.M. (8 A.M., New York time) -The Israeli Cabinet meets. A message from President Reagan arrives, expressing ''outrage'' and, reportedly threatening to halt the Habib mission. The Cabinet decides to end the raids and order new ones only if they are ''essential.''

4 P.M. (10 A.M., New York time) -President Reagan tries for hour to call Mr. Begin but cannot get through. 4:50 P.M. (10:50 A.M., New York time) - King Fahd of Saudi Arabia calls Mr. Reagan. 5 P.M. (11 A.M., New York time) -A new cease-fire goes into effect in west Beirut. 5:10 P.M. (11:10 A.M., New York time) - Mr. Reagan reaches Mr. Begin for 10-minute telephone call. 5:40 P.M. (11:40 A.M., New York time) - Mr. Begin calls President Reagan to say that a ''complete cease-fire'' had been ordered.

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 - President Reagan expressed ''outrage'' to Prime Minister Menachem Begin today over Israel's latest bombing raids in west Beirut, saying the attacks had resulted in ''needless destruction and bloodshed.'' It was the sharpest statement by Mr. Reagan since the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon nine weeks ago.

Larry Speakes, the deputy White House press secretary, said Mr. Reagan had been ''shocked'' by the Israeli attacks on west Beirut. Mr. Reagan voiced his feelings directly to Mr. Begin, according to Mr. Speakes.

Mr. Speakes said the Israeli action had threatened the efforts by Philip C. Habib, the special American envoy, to end the fighting in Lebanon and arrange for the withdrawal of the 6,000 to 9,000 Palestinian guerrillas trapped in west Beirut. In the last 48 hours, Mr. Habib's peace plan seemed on the verge of success. 'Massive Military Action'

''The President expressed his outrage over this latest round of massive military action,'' Mr. Speakes said early this afternoon. ''He emphasized that Israel's action halted Ambassador Habib's negotiations for a peaceful resolution of the Beirut crisis when they were at the point of success. The result has been more needless destruction and bloodshed.''

The NYT article continues. The ceasefire in 1982 was reported elsewhere as having been "independently" reached by Israel a 10 minutes before Reagan got through to Begin. However, word of Reagan's demand reached Tel Aviv hours before an "emergency cabinet meeting" which put an end to the bombing. Apparently, Israel wanted to save face and claim it stopped the fighting on its own accord.

An Aug. 9, 2007 Reuters article reported about Reagan referring to the Israeli military action as a holocaust:

Reagan diaries reveal president's private musings

Reagan took care not to spell out even mild swear words, so hell was written h--l and damn was d---. 

But at times he was provocative. He intentionally used the word "holocaust" to Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to refer to an Israeli attack on Beirut. 

On February 6, 1982, he noted that "trouble brewing in the Middle East" ahead of the Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon and that, "Right now Israel has lost a lot of world sympathy."

He said one particularly devastating bombing and artillery attack on western Beirut in August 1982 had led King Fahd of Saudi Arabia to call the White House "begging me to do something."

"I told him I was calling P.M. Begin immediately. And I did -- I was angry -- I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of war was becoming a picture of a 7-month-old baby with its arms blown off."

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute has this diary entry for Aug. 12,1982:

Met with the news the Israelis delivered the most devastating bomb & artillery attack on W. Beirut lasting 14 hours. Habib cabled—desperate—has basic agreement from all parties but cant arrange details of P.L.O. withdrawal because of the barrage. King Fahd called begging me to do something. I told him I was calling P.M. Begin immediately. And I did—I was angry. I told him it had to stop or our entire future relationship was endangered. I used the word holocaust deliberately & said the symbol of his war was becoming a picture of a 7 month old baby with it’s arms blown off. He told me he had ordered the bombing stopped—I asked about the artillery fire. He claimed the P.L.O. had started that & Israeli forces had taken casualties. End of call. Twenty mins. later he called to tell me he’d ordered an end to the barrage and plead for our continued friendship.

I've said it before and say it again: The US had the power and could have used it to force a reasonable peace agreement, but it failed to do so. Now, it is too late for that. It probably has been too late ever since a Jewish zealot with a gun assassinated Yitzhak Rabin on Nov. 4, 1995. This gigantic failure of US foreign policy could wind up being the straw that breaks the back of American democracy. This US failure could be a necessary part of the reason that the American experiment in democracy came to its stupid end in 2024.

 

The cynical deceit in American radical right authoritarianism

At ~1:54 - 3:10 of this 8:30 video, Project 2025 co-author Russell Vought talks about secret plans for killing the deep state and installing authoritarianism in the federal government. 

On its website, CNN posted a 5:23 video of this secretly recorded interview, with more of the interview shown than in the longer YouTube video. Vought thinks he is speaking to family members of a wealthy donor, but instead one is a reporter and the other is an actor.

What needs to be understood is that America's authoritarian radical right have extreme policies and governing tactics that are being kept strictly secret from the public to avoid losing the 2024 election.

In the interview Vought says that DJT distancing himself from Project 2025 is just politics. He calls Project 2025 a liberal boogeyman. He says there are secret plans (350 documents) that are not in Project 2025 that reflect either what DJT wants to do after he is re-elected, or what Vought himself wants. The secret plans include a total ban on abortions with no exceptions for anything, which DJT has said he opposes. Vought concedes that DJT needs to win the election, so the total abortion ban and other unpopular policy goals stay secret. Vought calls himself a Christian nationism person, which is close to Christian nationalism but in some undefined way, and wants America to be a Christian nation, whatever that means. 

Vought envisions a total ban on all pornography and massive deportations of immigrants to save America (presumably from the Great Replacement threat). He says that DJT has the power to deploy the military on the border and everywhere else that law and order needs to be maintained. Vought envisions as shadow bureaucracy to subvert existing institutions, federal bureaucrats and their independence. On this point, he is literally talking about setting up DJT in a dictatorship. He envisions (i) defunding bureaucracies and impounding funds to throttle them, and (ii) forming a shadow Office of Management and Budget and a shadow National Security Council and a shadow Office of Legal Counsel, all of which planning will be kept strictly secret until after the election.

Vought describes Democrats and liberals generally as evil monsters. He claims the demonstrations after George Floyd's death had nothing to do with race. Instead he says it was a liberal attempt to destabilize the Trump administration and pull down "structures" in society for the purposes of revolution, presumably violent revolution. 

American politics does not get much scarier or threatening than this.