Bryan Fischer
Supreme Court ruling on global warming: There they go again
By Bryan Fischer
On Monday, the Supreme Court once again demonstrated it has no regard for the constitutional limits on its judicial overreach by meddling in issues that were designed by the Founders to be handled by the legislative and executive branches of government.
The Court essentially ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, or face further legal action.
The Justices, evidently now fancying themselves the not-to-be-questioned arbiters of science along with just about everything else, ruled that CO2 is a pollutant. But it is not. CO2 is plant food, and higher concentrations of CO2 are beneficial to plant growth and therefore a positive boon to human life. During photosynthesis, plants convert CO2 to carbohydrates and release oxygen into the atmosphere in the process.
The Court's ruling ignores the fact that for the last 30 years, the EPA has been ordering automakers to find ways to eliminate every other emission from tailpipes except for CO2, for the obvious reason that it is not a pollutant.
Justice Stevens, who has published not a single peer-reviewed paper on the subject, made another scientific error in his opinion when he declared that CO2 was "the most important ... greenhouse gas." It isn't — water vapor is. But apparently the Court reasoned it had little control over the oceans — the primary source of water vapor — and would therefore have to content itself with ordering people around who will meekly comply with its increasingly outrageous and unconstitutional rulings.
The Court's ruling essentially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which the U.S. Senate rejected 95-0. Once again the left, unable to achieve its agenda through the democratic process, has resorted to the autocratic power of the Supreme Court to get what it wants.
The ruling in essence eliminates the need for either a legislative or executive branch, and would logically lead to the transfer of all bureaucratic agencies to the direct control of the Supreme Court, which could then run the country without the meddlesome issue of representative democracy to get in its way.
The dissent, authored by Chief Justice Roberts and signed by Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, quite correctly makes the point that the majority opinion "has caused us to transgress the proper — and properly limited — role of the courts in a democratic society. This court's standing jurisprudence simply recognizes that redress of grievances of the sort at issue here is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts."
The fact that this was a 5-4 ruling in favor of judicial activism highlights the critical importance of the next vacancy on the bench. One more originalist judge will mean a host of 5-4 decisions the other way, in favor of constitutional restraint, and holds the promise of a return to some semblance of judicial sanity.
If an opening occurs on President Bush's watch, expect a battle royal of the kind that torpedoed Robert Bork in1987. If left-leaning Justices hang on until a new president is inaugurated — in hopes that someone with a record of favoring the appointment of liberal judges is elected — the issue of judicial appointments will be, for the pro-family community and everyone who loves representative democracy, perhaps the most important single issue in the race.
© Bryan Fischer
On Monday, the Supreme Court once again demonstrated it has no regard for the constitutional limits on its judicial overreach by meddling in issues that were designed by the Founders to be handled by the legislative and executive branches of government.
The Court essentially ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases, or face further legal action.
The Justices, evidently now fancying themselves the not-to-be-questioned arbiters of science along with just about everything else, ruled that CO2 is a pollutant. But it is not. CO2 is plant food, and higher concentrations of CO2 are beneficial to plant growth and therefore a positive boon to human life. During photosynthesis, plants convert CO2 to carbohydrates and release oxygen into the atmosphere in the process.
The Court's ruling ignores the fact that for the last 30 years, the EPA has been ordering automakers to find ways to eliminate every other emission from tailpipes except for CO2, for the obvious reason that it is not a pollutant.
Justice Stevens, who has published not a single peer-reviewed paper on the subject, made another scientific error in his opinion when he declared that CO2 was "the most important ... greenhouse gas." It isn't — water vapor is. But apparently the Court reasoned it had little control over the oceans — the primary source of water vapor — and would therefore have to content itself with ordering people around who will meekly comply with its increasingly outrageous and unconstitutional rulings.
The Court's ruling essentially ratifies the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which the U.S. Senate rejected 95-0. Once again the left, unable to achieve its agenda through the democratic process, has resorted to the autocratic power of the Supreme Court to get what it wants.
The ruling in essence eliminates the need for either a legislative or executive branch, and would logically lead to the transfer of all bureaucratic agencies to the direct control of the Supreme Court, which could then run the country without the meddlesome issue of representative democracy to get in its way.
The dissent, authored by Chief Justice Roberts and signed by Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, quite correctly makes the point that the majority opinion "has caused us to transgress the proper — and properly limited — role of the courts in a democratic society. This court's standing jurisprudence simply recognizes that redress of grievances of the sort at issue here is the function of Congress and the chief executive, not the federal courts."
The fact that this was a 5-4 ruling in favor of judicial activism highlights the critical importance of the next vacancy on the bench. One more originalist judge will mean a host of 5-4 decisions the other way, in favor of constitutional restraint, and holds the promise of a return to some semblance of judicial sanity.
If an opening occurs on President Bush's watch, expect a battle royal of the kind that torpedoed Robert Bork in1987. If left-leaning Justices hang on until a new president is inaugurated — in hopes that someone with a record of favoring the appointment of liberal judges is elected — the issue of judicial appointments will be, for the pro-family community and everyone who loves representative democracy, perhaps the most important single issue in the race.
© Bryan Fischer
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