Sorry, Joe, but because Congress won't act does not create an emergency

David Harsanyi, over at Townhall.com yesterday, had an article entitled Biden Has No Right To Declare A Climate Emergency.

The Washington Post reported Monday night that President Joe Biden is "considering whether to declare a national climate emergency" to "salvage his stalled environmental agenda and satisfy Democrats on Capitol Hill." A few hours later, the Associated Press reported that the administration would "hold off" on the announcement as he, presumably, lays the political groundwork to move forward.

There's no "It's Summer" clause in the Constitution empowering the president to ignore the will of Congress and unilaterally govern when it gets hot. The rejection of the president's "agenda" by the lawmaking branch of government isn't a justification for executive action; it's the opposite. The Senate has unambiguously declined to implement Biden's climate plan.

I would note that the Japanese Empire attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and one day later, Congress declared war. Are we to believe that a response to an emergency can not wait even one day? The real problem is that many of these so called "emergencies" are not really emergencies at all, and so someone attempting to drum up support finds little. In this case, while St. Greta of Thunberg is outraged that the world will burn up in 12 years (the same 12 years they have been predicting for the last 30 years) no one really believes that to be true. If they did, they wouldn't fly around on private aircraft, fo these put out more greenhouse gases than a thousand regular homes.  For at least 50 years, whether the climate was supposedly cooling, or warming, or just changing, the solutions are always the same. Get rid of fossil fuels. Hog tie the United States so that Communist regimes don't look so bad.

Though you have to marvel at the utter shamelessness of Democrats, incessantly warning that "democracy" is on the precipice of extinction, now urging the president to act like a petty dictator. It's been less than a month since the Supreme Court rejected the Environmental Protection Agency's claim that bureaucrats could govern without Congress to regulate carbon (which is to say, the entire economy). What makes anyone believe that the president -- who, incidentally, just got back from begging Saudi theocrats to pump more oil -- is imbued with the power to enact a new regulatory regime or funding by fiat?

We now have senators like Jeff Merkley, who told reporters on Monday that Biden's emergency edict "unchains the president from waiting for Congress to act," openly undermining their oath to the Constitution by attacking the institution they represent. Congress may have spent decades abdicating its responsibilities -- which, despite conventional wisdom, isn't to rubber-stamp the Democrats' agenda -- but its members rarely advocated openly for executive abuse. I guess they're evolving.

The truth is that we need to repeal laws that give the Executive so called "emergency powers."   (At the same time, it would be nice if Congress took back it's power to make law rather than delegating the job to the Executive.  The Constitution after all does not allow the Legislature to delegate their powers. ) When emergency powers have been used, they have either been abused, as was the case with Roosevelt rounding up Japanese Americans, or even if intended for good, as Trump using such powers to erect the wall along the border. A true emergency is pretty clear to all, as is the case of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. 

There is no "climate emergency." There is no reason to limit fossil fuels. We can allow the private sector to sort this out, and leave government out of it.  Indeed, government is usually not the "solution," especially when they have been the ones creating the problem in the first place.