Comment by colechristensen
1 year ago
This puts a bit of a weird spin on it.
Especially after recent supreme court decisions, which I support, Congress has to give an agency specific authority within defined boundaries in order to make regulations which have the force of law.
Congress doesn't have to get down to the very specifics (like for example emissions standards numbers for cars), but it does have to be specific enough (can't say: EPA, you're responsible for environment stuff, make whatever laws you feel like).
For example the origination of the FTC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Trade_Commission_Act_o...
The legislation charges the FTC with preventing unfair business practices, defines what it means by unfair, and then gives authority to address these things through administrative actions or the courts.
There are two downsides to this new methodology:
1) Congress members are (generally) not experts outside of law and will probably leave out some word somewhere and then the new regulation gets overturned as the court rules it not in the agency's purview because congress forgot one thing.
2) Congress has been ineffective almost to the point of complete deficiency in the past 10 years, and will likely not pass many new regulations requiring specificity.
Too bad.
The solution to Congress being ineffective is not strengthening the executive to make law.
I don't want to live in a country ruled by bureaucracy driven by a dictator.