White House Refused To Open Unwelcome EPA E-Mail 497
epfreed writes "The White House lost a case in the Supreme Court about the need for the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases. So the EPA made new rule. And now the NYTimes reports that the White House did not want to get these new rules from the EPA about greenhouse gases. So they did not open the email."
The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
time paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
Also after 7 years, is anyone surprised?
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
i.e. deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of wrongdoing (as drug dealing in one's house) despite suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its existence Willful blindness involves conscious avoidance of the truth and gives rise to an inference of knowledge of the crime in question.
Would you expect any less (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't open it either. (Score:4, Insightful)
Given the government's poor record with computer security, I wouldn't open ANY documents emailed me. I would imagine there are policies in place that would forbid the acceptance of such messages. This story could well be somebody at the EPA insisting on total asshattery.
And if its something official and important, why is it being emailed anyway? Shouldn't it be, like, printed out and physically handed to somebody? Maybe signed, stamped, notarized, and whatever else?
Re:time paradox (Score:2, Insightful)
They surely knew already what the email would contain. People talk to each other, the email was probably just the 'formal' notice of the change.
This also illustrates, for those who blame everything on any Administration, the Executive doesn't have absolute control over agencies that are ostensibly part of the Executive Branch. That goes for people who demonized Clinton and blamed him for each and every thing the bueraucracy did, and for those who blame every single such action on The Evil Bush.
Truth be told, the vast majority of the various Federal Agencies are made up of career bueraucrats who in many cases were appointed long the President is elected and will still be entrenched long after he's gone.
There they go again (Score:2, Insightful)
That's just it, isn't it? The Bush administration is convinced that the Federal government cannot work and they do everything in in their power to prove it at every turn.
Heck of a job Brownie!
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like a never-ending spiral downward to see how absolutely slimy these people can be without actually getting forcibly ejected from the WH. Seriously, how badly do these bastards have to behave before they can be impeached? Bill got a hummer and has impeachment hearings brought against him, the Bush admins just flat out break law after law and absolutely nothing happens. What the hell?
This is perfectly legitimate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on the experience of the last seven years, non-reality-based decision making is a powerful tool for gathering and holding power. We should celebrate the Bush administration's success in contesting or ignoring every bit of evidence that contests their highly profitable worldview. After all, didn't a lot of people vote for Bush because they wanted a president who says what he means and means what he says?
Anyway, listening to scientists just encourages to make up stuff that upsets people. Evolution, the germ theory of disease, the greenhouse effect . . . we'd all be happier and more content if we all behaved like Ben Stein would like us to: God-fearing authority-worshipping dumbfucks.
That explains a lot... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:time paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't have to open any emails anymore, they just call the NSA to give them the gist of it...
True test of ignorance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Subject line? (Score:5, Insightful)
Other possible subject lines: "Get Viagra / Cialis without a prescription"
"VP Cheney shot another friend in the face"
"Bum Fights Vol 3 now available on DVD"
"American Idol canceled"
"Mobilize the Navy! North Dakota invades South Dakota"
"Senator Byrd called you a pussy!"
Carbon Dioxide (Score:5, Insightful)
Checks and Balances? (Score:5, Insightful)
For the past sixty years or more, judicial despotism has increased until now, you have governors and legislators of states waiting to see what some court will rule on an issue before they can proceed. This is NOT what the Framers intended, and unless we get things back to the balance of powers between the branches of government things are going to become more despotic.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
OK ... to further that then.
Where is the impeachment for LYING ABOUT WHY THE COUNTRY WAS DRAGGED INTO A PROTRACTED WAR! ... not for the war itself.
Email means nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
There's too many problems with it. If you're sending something official, there's no reliable record that it was even delivered.
What's next? The EPA sending an IM about new regulations?
Using email in this matter is completely inappropriate, and the ./ community shouldn't get so slackjawed because of it.
Re:Why use email? (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, no, that's not how it works. The legislature (that's the House and Senate) writes laws. The President either vetos or enforces those laws. After enforcement, the judiciary judges whether or not said law has been broken.
The primary law that all other laws must conform to is the Constitution. If the Constitutions doesn't say Congress has the power to pass a certain law, than said law doesn't have to be obeyed (in theory, of course).
Re:Checks and Balances? (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, I'd really, really rather it be this way than the alternative [wikipedia.org].
Without a "despotic" court, Bush et al. would have looked at Hamdan v. Rumsfeld [wikipedia.org] and just said "well, we don't agree, so fuck you!"
If judges are really overstepping their bounds, Congress always has the remedy of impeachment. If they're too afraid to pull the trigger, that's their problem in not asserting themselves.
Re:That explains a lot... (Score:2, Insightful)
He might be psychotic. He heard that Al Quida's (not even trying to spell it today) base of operation was in Iraq and he saw a lot of people were really happy about going to war with Iraq.
Once again (Score:3, Insightful)
we se the "LA LA LA!! I CAN"T HEAR YOU!! LA LA LA LA!!!" theory of government in action.
I'd ask why the hell people would seriously consider anyone connected with this Administration for any sort of public service ever again, but I fear you'd tell me and I'm just not up for it anymore.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
For one, because he was never under oath.
Second, he never exactly lied, they merely "selectively observed" some facts, and "selectively neglected" others. Obviously completely different from lying, and completely out of the realm of lying under oath.
More seriously, IMHO the Administration's problem is that they believe that they can force their wished version of reality into the world, and make is to, evidently by sheer force of will and political determination. Disagree with the facts? Reinterpret them until they agree with you!
The real and impeachable crime here is misfeasance - sheer incompetence.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I think Congress should vote directly on such a massive regulation that could impact hundreds of billions to trillions of dollars of economic development.
That's far, far too much power to be wielded by officials not directly elected by the people. And, worse, have their non-election touted as a benefit by supporters...of the regulations. They don't have to "worry about politics."
Not a very Founding Fathers-ish attitude. Break part of the separation and limitations of powers simply because, you know, you can get your laws, i.e. regulations, jammed down the throats of people that way.
There was a reason Congress was expressly forbidden from delegating its lawmaking authority. This was so it couldn't avoid passing laws the people might not want, and would cause them to lose the next election. Shielded by this layer, with unpopular regulations they could just throw up their hands and lie, "Gee, I wouldn't have voted for that!" Uhh, you can vote to reverse it, though. "Yeah, we'll get around to that as soon as possible."
It isn't an issue of the value of the regulation, i.e. law. It's an issue of Constitutional propriety. If a law is so necessary, it should be passed by vote with little or no problem.
Re:Would you expect any less (Score:2, Insightful)
That doesn't mean they can't try and make a big fuss about it. It's not like they're doing anything useful with their time otherwise.
In fact, Christopher Dodd (D-CT) is busy trying to shift Countrywide's bad loans through the FHA to the taxpayers [heritage.org] so that when BoA buys them for $7 a share they only get the good parts and we get all the subprime slime we can eat.
Oh, and we might also get to foot the bill for BoA's acquisition of the good parts! [bloomberg.com]
Yea, color me an unimpressed democratic voter too.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:2, Insightful)
i.e. deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of wrongdoing (as drug dealing in one's house) despite suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its existence Willful blindness involves conscious avoidance of the truth and gives rise to an inference of knowledge of the crime in question. /not sure
What do you mean "WE?" (Score:3, Insightful)
Give the man some credit. Bush is faithfully serving the people who got him into office.
They suckered the dupes into thinking they were getting a straight-shooting native-born Texan who was the kind of feller who'd drink a beer with them, keep the military out of nation-building boondoggles, hated taxes, and loved little unborn babies.
Now they've managed to convince us, and Congress, that we're better off not making him and his cronies accountable.
Bush and Cheney will spend their lives after the White House getting big bucks serving on the boards of Exxon, Halliburton, and Soylent Corporation ,while we are left to deal with the financial and ecological mess they created.
Suckers. We're all suckers.
EPA's only authority comes from the President (Score:5, Insightful)
The President is the Chief Executive Officer of the Executive Branch.
All power of the Executive Branch comes as proxy for the Chief Executive.
The Executive Branch does not have the authority to create obligations which the Chief Executive officer does not want.
The EPA is part of the Executive Branch.
The SCOTUS ruling endorsed the authority of the EPA to create such regulations, it did not empower the EPA to create them exclusive of the Executive Officer. The SCOTUS did not somehow turn the EPA into a fourth branch of the Federal Government.
There's no "there" there.
It really is that simple.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
i.e. deliberate failure to make a reasonable inquiry of wrongdoing (as drug dealing in one's house) despite suspicion or an awareness of the high probability of its existence Willful blindness involves conscious avoidance of the truth and gives rise to an inference of knowledge of the crime in question. /not sure
IANAL, but wouldn't it fall under contempt of court? The willful blindness analogy would hold up if it were a case of someone else committing a crime in the White House and the people being prosecuted had looked the other way, but this is a case of the defendants losing the case and simply ignoring the verdict by ignoring the EPA.
It's like if I refused to pay my house payment, and then the mortgage company sued me, won the case, with the judge saying "you bill him and he had better pay that bill", and I tried to weasel out by immediately throwing away any mail that came from my mortgage company. How would that NOT be contempt of court?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans now know how it's like to be ruled by a ten-year old. "Nuh uh, I'm not going to open the e-mail." "Sir? Mr. President, that's the EPA's conclusions. It's important." "I disagree." "Respectfully, Mr. President, you should read it first." "Not gonna do it."
Even if he knew you were "computer illiterate"? (Score:4, Insightful)
John McCain says he's completely computer illiterate, and has to rely on other people to do anything on the computer for him. Now, given that George W. Bush has said that "doesn't read newspapers" - what're the odds *he's* computer literate? Or that either of them would hire (or keep) people who felt that skill was far more important than they did?
Whether you think this is genuine incompetence or just plausible deniability - the fact remains that we collectively "hired" someone who said he lacked a vital skill for the job, and a fair portion of Americans are seriously considering hiring another one.
If you were willfully ignorant, and had to rely exclusively on the caliber of people a willfully ignorant person would hire as advisers - you too would end up having to:
-Say things like "$4.00 a gallon gas? I hadn't heard about that".
-Wait until your staff put together a DVD for you to illustrate what a "heckuva" job that ex-Head of an Equestrian club manager you hired to run FEMA was doing responding to a Category 5 hurricane that hit a below sea level city.
-Claim that "Everyone thought he had Weapons of Mass Destruction".
-Respond that "No one could have predicted" terrorists would fly highjacked jumbo jets into the building they previously tried to blow up with a truck bomb.
-Assume that promising to "Protect and Uphold the Constitution" consisted primarily of keeping your hands of the interns, and doing a lot of bicycling.
So let's not complain about this too much folks. We hired an incurious idiot to run the company. Just be thankful the company didn't go completely bankrupt before we started paying more attention to applicant's resumes.
I'm actually far more surprised than thankful. If we make it to 2009 without China foreclosing on us, it's going to feel the way it does to wake up safe in bed when you have no memory of how you got home from the previous night's party: thankful you got home alive but still worried about kind of damage you've done to your car, credit line, or reputation in the process.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:3, Insightful)
That would actually be true if gas prices were somewhere near the reality.
The biggest problem is people speculating on oil prices, buying oil that they're never going to use and might not even have been produced thus somebody is stockpiling something somewhere only to keep the prices up at the pump (which is largely consisting of taxes and national profit markups). What would be great if is the companies that are stockpiling and raking in billions more are hit hard by this (I'm looking at you Exxon)
As we see, the production and demand ratios will eventually regulate it, Saudi-Arabia notices that their biggest clients are taking less and less oil in and the value of the dollar was already low so all of a sudden they can produce a few hundreds of thousand barrels more and drill some more oil fields so they can maintain their income? And the US all of a sudden sees that huge amounts of oil are still untouched within their own borders?
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:2, Insightful)
He's been under oath since January 20, 2001.
Clinton "selectively observed" a distinction between intercourse and oral sex because he did not want to get in trouble with his wife.
Bush, on the other hand, has disingenuously involved America and it's allies in a war that is costly in terms of money and human life.
The failure to tell the truth is the same thing as lying, no matter how many euphemisms you throw at it. The important distinction here is the results of the lies. Because Clinton lied we have a few cigar jokes and maybe a creepy feeling the next time we see the Oval Office desk. Because Bush lied men and women are dying.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
GW has been under oath from the moment he took office. He swore an oath to uphold the constitution. He's failed at that. It's well past time to impeach.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:3, Insightful)
"They're fine with denying people rights because of race/gender/sexual preference."
The people chose Barack, Hillary, and Barney Frank.
They're fine with their own rights being stripped away because of some vague promise that it'll help fight "terrism".
If people were "fine" with it, why would the admin. be trying to keep their violations of NSLs secret? And be trying to grant retroactive immunity to the Telecoms?
"They're fine with destroying the earth as long as they can save $0.20 a gallon on gas for the next year."
Not sure what this one is about. I don't hear people in favor of Anwr drilling, for example.
There are not too many things that I would not be willing to put up for the vote of an informed populace, with the key being that they have correct information.
Re:Subject of the Email (Score:4, Insightful)
I said it before, I say it again, I prefer having someone in the Oval Office that gets a blowjob to someone who really needs one badly.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow.. Finally someone else gets this.
You know, Back during the 70's oil crisis, American went off the international oil market and the trade was highly regulated. Over the years, this has been reversed and on the late 90's, the last regulations concerning the furures markets and trading oil was lifted. This is where it led us too. I'm not against deregulation but I think there is a problem when someone holds onto large reservers just to drive the price up in order to profit.
Actually, Saudi-Arabia is noticing that it can no longer manipulate the price of oil. Their goals are to sort of flood the market making the latests hoarding pointless and hopefully force a change in action from the people that are hoarding the oil. This could backfire too, it could reach a point where there is little demand and the people hoarding the oil to drive the price up are forced to sell at a severe loss. I'm guessing that the people doing so are using other people's money so that would likely mean massive losses in retirement accounts and unpaid debts creating another problem for the country.This hoarding is only possible because world wide production is close to it's maximum limits. Otherwise, they would just product more oil when demand increases. Drilling at home would negate this problem too. More wells doesn't mean huge flows of oil, they production can be manipulated to find a fair price. It is hard to reason why people would be hoarding oil knowing of this possibility and I'm thinking it has to do with more then perceived profits. I think it is being done to either manipulate social policy, international policy, or some contrived combination of both. Purposely loosing billions of inverter dollars that belong to retirement accounts or health insurance investments could create a necessity for socialized medicine. It could also be a purposeful act to restrict Co2 emissions by some group because people won't drive when they can't afford to. It could also be because someone wants us to get out of the middle east and drop support for Israel or even invade other countries and so on. It is hard to tell and I can only speculate. But buying oil at $100 a barrel and holding to sell it at $100 a barrel doesn't make as much profit as some people think. So I'm doubting that it is all about the money.
Re:EPA's only authority comes from the President (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether or not there's any sort of illegal aspect to the administration's position aside, it's a pretty darn childish and embarrassing stance to take. These clowns have long since abandoned any sense of shame for their deeds. I guess that shame instead gets to fall on everyday Americans.
"It found nothing"? No, you just excerpted nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's strange, making me suspicious of your thesis, that with all the hyperlinks in that Washington Post article [washingtonpost.com], not one points to the full text of the report it discusses, nor even to complete paragraphs or even complete sentences that specify, for example, on [sic] nuclear or biological weapons, just which of the "president's statements 'were substantiated by intelligence information.'" And it's strange that, among so many excerpts, all the excerpts from that article are sentence fragments, necessitating the improper grammar repeated ad nauseam, "On [fallacy]?. The president's statements 'were substantiated [by
And, no, most of Congress did not know at that time anything but the cherry-picked version manufactured by Douglas Feith & co.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Just as an aside, remember the 9/11 Investigations where Bush and Cheney agreed to talk to the commission, but not under oath? Now you know why.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:3, Insightful)
What are you saying? Bush was in court and swore an oath? My last court room oath went like this. "Do you swear that your testimony will be accurate and factual to the best of your ability and recognize the your failure in to be truthful could lead to punishment under the law."
On my scale of harm, The chief law enforcement officer of the land sitting in a court of law as the dependent of a case brought against him, lying about something detrimental to his defense with the goal of helping his side not lose is just as bad if not worse then lying about the reason we should goto war. However, I actually place the lying about war a little lower on the scale because congress had access to all the information the president had in addition to the interpretations the administration gave, If they couldn't come to the conclusion that something was incorrectly being interpreted or presented before authorizing the president to goto war, then it isn't likely that he lied.
I don't know why people want to forget that congress, not the president, has the power to declare war. The administration might have been wanting it but it was ultimately congress's decision. This is also probably why there won't be an impeachment.
Re:Checks and Balances? (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that the legislative branch regularily passes laws that clearly (and, a few years later, also by Supreme Court decision) are unconstitutional, and the executive branch has already declared itself above the law, ignores laws and constitution wherever it suits them, and passes retroactive immunity laws where it can't - putting all that shit together, doesn't it strike you as a good thing that the judicial branch is taking a strong stand?
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm getting really sick of people trying to justify the excesses of this administration by pointing out it's just more of the same.
Yes, corruption has always been around, and the difference between this administration and pretty much any random previous one is one of scale, not kind, but that doesn't mean the Bush administration hasn't been particularly egregious, or undeniably worse than any other in recent history.
Why try to explain away their excesses like this? Is it just an attempt to justify not getting up and doing something about it?
Re:EPA's only authority comes from the President (Score:4, Insightful)
Congress created the Clean Air Act.
The executive branch must abide by and enforce the law.
The EPA is the executive agency empowered to enforce that particular law.
The President can't just choose to ignore the law.
I'd say that "there" is definitely there.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:1, Insightful)
Legal technicality: Clinton lied under oath regarding a personal sexual affair.
Actual Reality: The disaster of Iraq. Thousands killed. More to come, like as not.
Substantiated by intelligence information? By all means, send us the link to any reports that haven't since been repudiated by the intelligence community. We're all waiting.
If you can't figure out the difference here, and you can even *think* of clinging to a defense of Bush, I'm not sure anyone or anything can help you. It's a failure of basic reasoning. A lack of perspective that tells any rational human the relative importance of things.
To but it bluntly, lying about a blow job is trivial - even to congress. Lying to start a war is not - especially to congress.
Re:Checks and Balances? (Score:3, Insightful)
I suggest that the Bush administration has just as much constitutional authority to give the court the finger,
And you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
The executive must follow the laws passed by the legislative. And guess what? The Clean Air Act was passed by the legislative branch (just as habeas corpus is the law of the land). The judiciary simply determined that, as it stands, the executive is not abiding by the law. The executive must now comply with the law.
But, you're right, I'm sure this is all about judicial "activism". :rollseyes:
Oh, and the term is "abrogated".
Waaaaaahh!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not gonna read it and you can't make me! And if I don't read it, I don't have to do anything about it!
Thank $DIETY that there's only seven more months of this sort of crap. The hell of it is that these bozos could screw things more royally than anyone could ever imagine in those seven months.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:3, Insightful)
There's "fine with it" and then there's "fine with it". Opinion polls about warrantless wiretapping run about 50-something percent against/40-something percent for [blogspot.com]. That's a solid majority, but far from the overwhelming majority it takes for Washington to pay attention. That's not even a big enough majority to break a Senate filibuster. The secrecy surrounding NSL and the push for telecom immunity is just to be double-extra sure they get away with it.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:4, Insightful)
McCain will use it of course as a "too many people do not know this, and am going to 'play that card'", but it should be seen as nothing more than a boon for the oil companies, and a whole bunch of 1%, in 10 years (up to 15, depending on the difficulty of permit granting and construction location).
Why in the hell is it so hard to have the above explained (to me by a neutral -stated- Havard Prof via NPR) in the 10 seconds it would take to dispel any further discussion about it, which IMO would be the right thing to do, on any network "news"?
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm talking about buying futures just to create a shortage.
When it comes time to deliver on the good, the contracts are just shuffled to someone else. A network like this can make extra oil completely scarce because Instead of having 100 barrels available, there are only 50 or so. That isn't a problem when people who use the oil hold the contracts because less people will be buying in the future. With contracts going to people who will never use the oil, there is sort of a split market where you end up with alternative sources for the commodity. Instead of taking the contract, it gets sold to someone else and repeatedly passed around as if it is a tangible object instead of something of a short terms or specific value.
What happens is that Investor A sells to B who sells to C who eventually sells to D who can actually use the product. A buys more and starts again. But because there are 2 to 3 middle buyers before this happens, the oil can be kept out of the market for long periods of time creating the hoarding event. A buys so when C sells, it is worth more. C sells so it goes down and A buys. B, which is most likely a retirement fund or some insurance brokerage becomes a middle man to enable this behavior. B can actually be several different companies at once so the volume A and C trade can be large enough to hide a portion of the supply.
I'm not sure if this is the classical definition of hoarding, but it takes the product off the market for the people using or needing it in order to create a shortage and increase the value of it. Generally hoarding has something to do with an emergency where people have a greater need for a product but at todays gas prices and the fact that public transportation is non-existent or ineffective in most areas, I would call it close to an emergency. A producer is limited to how much they can produce in in how much they can sell which is what creates an artificial shortage. In short, the seller becomes someone other then the supplier and the supplier loses all control over the price.
I might have not been clear as I would have likes so Look at it this way. If I see that everyone in a city eats bread, they pay someone to buy it all up so I can sell it back at a large profit. What stops me from doing this is that the bread makers will just make more bread causing me to lose money. Normally this effect would be limited by the maximum amount of bread the bread makers can produce so if that is reached, the bread will be mine and you will have to pay my price (assuming that you can't make your own and nobody rations how much bread I can buy). Now in the real world, Someone would just build another factory and make more bread. Eventually, there would be a point where I couldn't get enough funding and I couldn't charge a price for the bread that would recover all that I would have to throw out or otherwise dispose of. But, if there were arbitrary restrictions stopping more bread factories from being built, and ones limiting the amount of production existing factories could make, then I would be limited by only the funding I can come up with. Now suppose I have an investment broker who handled all the retirement accounts for everyone in the city and I offered to sell them portions of the bread that they could later sell back to me at a profit. They raise regulatory concerns so I have my brother buy the bread and sell it to the broker who sells it to me and I then resell it to the people.
I think this is happening with the oil. restrictions in the production and unregulated trade between people who aren't ever going to use the oil are doing exactly this. The amount of collusion between them could be negligible or it could be great. But I don't think it is not happening.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the lie that lead to the impeachment was about Monica Lewinsky. Wrong adulterous affair.
In any case, it somewhat begs the question. I think the strongest case conservatives made was, essentially, the "rule of law" argument: our country doesn't have rulers, but has a system of law that no one, regardless of office, can be held to be above.
The question, however, is: do we really believe that, or not? Because the defense of the Clinton administration boiled down to, "Well, these laws weren't broken in any matter that relates to the function of the office," and the conservatives replied -- I think correctly -- that it doesn't matter. Yet the defense of the Bush administration's actions boil down to, "Well, as long as we can make a plausible argument that we're breaking these laws in the service of national security, we shouldn't be held accountable." Would any conservative buy that argument if it had been made by Clinton? His wife? John Kerry? Barack Obama? Unless the answer is, "I would have absolutely no problem giving a Hillary Clinton administration the same sweeping surveillance powers and immunity from oversight," I would argue that's a serious disconnect.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:3, Insightful)
The article also mentions that the EPA report was produced because the Supreme Court ruled that, under the Clean Air Act, the EPA was required to determine whether greenhouse gasses should be regulated.
In other words, Congress did pass a law. It is known as the Clean Air Act. The Executive Branch was not properly implementing the law, and the Supreme Court told them that they needed to do so.
This has nothing to do with your fantasy about non-elected officials substituting their regulations for laws. The regulations were specifically required by the law.
Re:President's authority comes from consitution (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not the executive's place to create or ignore obligations(laws). He can create policy regarding conduct within the framework of law -- he can decide how to execute the law. Congress created the obligation in law, the executive branch is then responsible for executing said law. The judicial branch judged the effort in executing the law as interpreted by the supreme court as lacking and ordered compliance. Basic checks and balances. In this case the executive has overstepped his constitutional bounds.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:2, Insightful)
>I'm talking about buying futures just to create a shortage.
Clearly, that is the case, but you're talking about it in general terms, without any kind of data to support your assertions. Do you actually follow the marketplace, or are you just guessing?
I read your post, and I don't get the impression that you've studied economics or that you even fully understand how the oil market (or any other commodities market) works.
To your credit, I do note that you are at least not one of the people claiming that "the President" (or VP) has directly contributed to the current oil prices, or that "the Congress" could directly do anything to change it -- although you are making vague hints at "regulation" that leads me to suspect you believe Congress has the power to interfere in the market directly.
It's not clear where you find this "artificial shortage." There is no supply problem that correlates to the recent price increase. There is also no demand increase that drives a price increase. It's not clear what mechanism allows the sort of "hoarding" you describe, given the nature of futures contracts. I realize there is a business trade in immediate delivery contracts and that investment banks have diversified into refineries and oil storage, but this phenomenon is minuscule on the global scale and does not explain everything.
The market traders foresee scarcity, and speculation is one approach to mitigating that scarcity. A natural consequence of this is free market speculation, which will eventually smooth prices and supply.
I don't consider this "a bad thing", FWIW.
You should probably be aware that I also consider an oil value level (as opposed to "price") where gasoline powered transportation becomes uneconomical, to be a necessary event in the greater human experience.
But back on topic, I'd like to know (1) how much oil is physically being hoarded, in billions of barrels, (2) where it is being hoarded, and (3) who, specifically, is hoarding.
Last question: What corporate board could be persuaded not to sell every last drop in reserve, at today's historic price?
Well, the "regulation" you are looking for is "position limits on long-only index funds", and I don't disagree that would be a good thing. (H.L. Hunt was a friend of my dad's, the bastard.)
If you borrow from the bank to meet a margin call, you have limits to your exposure. If you happen to be the bank, you are classified as a "commercial investor" and have no such limits.
Here's a wrench for you. I think oil will be down at the end of the year. I think because of the side-effects of high oil prices, it may fall in the investors' (not "speculators") interest to start discounting their supply and taking a loss, as a driver for positive returns in other areas (the "oil hedge" becoming a useful tool aside from a direct profit center.) I believe that ordinary traders who
are buying long positions today might take a bath. There is enough pressure driven by transportation costs that such adjustments, far-fetched as they may sound, are possible.
Yes, it's a bubble. But also, future oil scarcity is not a myth, and I realize people have screamed about "running out" since the 50s. But a reality-based assessment shows that oil is becoming more scarce, and that there won't be some rapid event where "we run out" as certain people seem to imagine, but hopefully there will be a rapid decline in demand. $12/gallon gasoline might help with that. Preferential consumption of locally produced goods will help more. I'm already doing this -- I choose my food based on the distance it traveled, and not the price or the label. This has several effects, (1.) it further marginalizes transportation costs, (2.) it keeps money in the local economy, and (3.) the local producer benefits directly.
It's all a tempest in a teapot anyway. Fuel prices are a marginal thing for most people, despite the plaintive cries that you hear ("can't afford to go to work", or the notion that food prices double when fuel prices double, tired of hearing that one.)
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, the deniers favorite redirection - that we're simply not able to "destroy the earth." Not such a cute canard anymore, that one.
For the record, it means "destroy our world," our world means those aspects of the Earth and its habitats that we human beings occupy, grow food in, take water from, excrete back into, etc. *That* world is the one folks are concerned about polluting, changing the chemistry of, etc.
But you already knew that, didn't you?
Can this President act more immature? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the sort of stunt you'd expect from a 6 year-old, sticking his fingers in his ear so as to not hear you.
Wow, can this President act more immature?
Re:EPA's only authority comes from the President (Score:5, Insightful)
Where, exactly, did the SCOTUS or the Clean Air Act COMPEL the EPA to act?
Have you read the Clean Air Act?
The relevant paragraph is this one:
There's a phrasing there that does in fact compel the EPA to act. Or have you read the SCOTUS decision?
Sounds like a lot of compelling to act is going on there too.
Re:The WH's boss is still we the people you know (Score:2, Insightful)
Holy crap.