> if the Congress wants EPA to regulate emissions the way they tried to do, all it needs to do is to pass a law explicitly instructing it to do so. Of course, it won’t, because there is no political will in Congress to pass this.
This doesn't accurately represent the present situation on this or really any topic. It makes is sound like members of Congress simply don't care. Unless the filibuster is removed or reformed, a party wishing to legislate on any controversial issue needs a super majority in the Senate to pass the legislation just in that chamber of Congress. They also need control of the House and the presidency. There is plenty of political will in the Democratic caucus to pass this legislation, but due to gerrymandering in the House and the inherently unrepresentative nature of the Senate they cannot get enough votes to pass legislation, however much they may wish to, on the rare occasions the stars align and they have control over both the executive and legislative branches. The Republicans need control over only one of these three choke points to stop legislation. And now that they have a generation of control over the Supreme Court, and the Court has demonstrated that they regard legal argument as post facto justification for political decisions, the Democrats are well and truly screwed. There may be some Republicans who secretly would like to do something about any one of the major catastrophes facing the nation and the world, and some may claim this in public, but because their co-partisans are making total political war on non-conservatives at the moment they can't actually do anything or they face the mob.
Basically, "political will" isn't the issue. It's our crappily designed "democracy" mixed with total political war, strident propaganda, and millennialists who are happy to let the world go to hell because they think they're going to heaven.
In my mind all this means that things are working as intended. The Constitution was set up to limit what the federal government can do, and the Congress (particularly the senate) was set up to make it hard to do things that did not have significant support over and above a simple majority.
FDR set up a bureaucratic state to try to get around this, but it’s not what the constitution envisioned.
I for one am happy that unelected bureaucrats (who the voters have no way to get rid of) now have less power, and that politicians who can be held accountable now have to act explicitly to make big changes. Again, working as designed.
> I for one am happy that unelected bureaucrats (who the voters have no way to get rid of) now have less power, and that politicians who can be held accountable now have to act explicitly to make big changes. Again, working as designed.
Politicians are held accountable for not doing things as well. In our current system whoever is in power is held accountable, even if they didn't do anything because they were blocked by our byzantine form of government. But the politicians who should be held accountable are the ones who blocked it. Do you view this as a good system?
Consider a scenario:
President Bob and the Do Something party are in power. They really, really, really want to do something. Everyone is yelling at them to do something! Something must be done! But the Do Nothing party uses some procedural mechanism, or their control of the cloak room, or the secret password written on the back of the Constitution, to keep anything from happening. The public doesn't understand the system, because few people do; all they see is that NOTHING IS GETTING DONE. The Do Nothing party is quite pleased to stick all the blame on the Do Something party. They don't enlighten the voters. Even while they block any action they go on TV and solemnly intone about the fecklessness of the Do Something party. They said they would do something! Look what they do when in power! So feckless! So the voters punish the Do Something party at the polls.
This is more or less how our system of government works.
Sometimes something needs to be done. But we can't do anything!*
* Footnote: this isn't strictly true. The Do Something party will cooperate with the Do Nothing party on those rare occasions when the Do Nothingers actually want to do something. The Do Nothing party will not reciprocate.
Nice rant, however you are ignoring the dissenting opinion above, and your comfortable tone indicates satisfaction with the status quo, which generally never needed more support, and brands you as one who would side with power everytime. I wouldn’t trust you in my organization.
This doesn't accurately represent the present situation on this or really any topic. It makes is sound like members of Congress simply don't care. Unless the filibuster is removed or reformed, a party wishing to legislate on any controversial issue needs a super majority in the Senate to pass the legislation just in that chamber of Congress. They also need control of the House and the presidency. There is plenty of political will in the Democratic caucus to pass this legislation, but due to gerrymandering in the House and the inherently unrepresentative nature of the Senate they cannot get enough votes to pass legislation, however much they may wish to, on the rare occasions the stars align and they have control over both the executive and legislative branches. The Republicans need control over only one of these three choke points to stop legislation. And now that they have a generation of control over the Supreme Court, and the Court has demonstrated that they regard legal argument as post facto justification for political decisions, the Democrats are well and truly screwed. There may be some Republicans who secretly would like to do something about any one of the major catastrophes facing the nation and the world, and some may claim this in public, but because their co-partisans are making total political war on non-conservatives at the moment they can't actually do anything or they face the mob.
Basically, "political will" isn't the issue. It's our crappily designed "democracy" mixed with total political war, strident propaganda, and millennialists who are happy to let the world go to hell because they think they're going to heaven.