This op-ed originally ran in The Hill.
The Feb. 28 executive order overturning a Clean Water Act rule clarifying EPA's jurisdiction over wetlands furnishes but the latest example of President Trump's propensity to rule by almost daily fiat. Trump has ruled by decree ever since he assumed office. He has not proposed a single bill to our elected representatives, not even a bill to help blue-collar workers and rebuild America through infrastructure projects, one of his main campaign promises. Nor has he supported a bill introduced by others to accomplish this.
Our Constitution, however, authorizes an elected legislature to establish laws and directs the president only to "faithfully execute" them. And it requires all government officials to swear an oath to obey the law. The introduction of the oath clause into our Constitution marked a sharp departure from prior practice, under which government officials swore fealty to obey a supreme leader.
This rule of law has served America well. In countries like Putin's Russia, where one ruler controls, the law does not establish just standards but instead authorizes the ruler to punish adversaries and to empower and enrich his cronies. The most prosperous countries on earth have divergent tax and regulatory regimes, but they all have a stable rule of law.
Even though elected legislatures often move with painful slowness, citizens' ability to control the law's content through locally elected representatives limits the damage a single erratic person can do to society and the economy and over time corrects many egregious errors.
Liberals and conservatives usually react to Trump's decrees in predictable ways, decrying the orders they do not agree with and supporting the ones they like. Trump's supporters seem delighted because some of the orders implement campaign promises. But in reacting this way, we may be missing the point.
Read the full op-ed in The Hill.
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David Driesen | March 7, 2017
This op-ed originally ran in The Hill. The Feb. 28 executive order overturning a Clean Water Act rule clarifying EPA’s jurisdiction over wetlands furnishes but the latest example of President Trump’s propensity to rule by almost daily fiat. Trump has ruled by decree ever since he assumed office. He has not proposed a single bill […]
Dave Owen | March 6, 2017
Originally published on Environmental Law Prof Blog by CPR Member Scholar Dave Owen. Last Tuesday, President Trump signed an executive order directing EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to begin work on a new rule defining the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The rule, if and when it is finalized, would replace the […]
Matthew Freeman | March 6, 2017
Unless you regularly read newspapers from markets ranging from Baltimore to Houston to the San Francisco Bay area, chances are that you missed some of the op-eds that CPR’s scholars and staff published in the nation’s newspapers in February. We post links on our website, of course; you can find them on the various issue […]
James Goodwin | March 3, 2017
The first rule of reading anti-regulatory bills, executive orders, and other policy prescriptions is: Sweat the hyper-technical, anodyne-sounding stuff. And President Donald Trump’s February 24 executive order on “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda” demonstrates why this rule exists. One of the order’s provisions – which no doubt caused glaze to form over many an eye […]
Robert L. Glicksman | March 2, 2017
In his first speech upon assuming his duties as EPA Administrator, Scott Pruitt informed the agency’s employees that “regulators exist to give certainty to those that they regulate.” No, Mr. Pruitt, they do not. Regulators and the regulations they are responsible for adopting and enforcing exist to protect the public interest. In particular, they exist […]
Lesley McAllister | March 2, 2017
Originally published on Environmental Law Prof Blog by CPR Member Scholar Lesley McAllister. Did you know that as of July 2016, we have a new federal law mandating that genetically engineered food be labeled? It is true – see 7 U.S.C. § 1639(b)(2)(D) (Jul. 29, 2016). So when, you might ask, will you be able to know […]
Robert L. Glicksman | February 28, 2017
Imagine you come across a colleague sitting at his desk amid piles of yellowed papers. When you ask what he is working on, he says it’s his annual family budget. “What’s with all the old papers?” you might ask. “Oh,” he replies, “I always work my new budget off my receipts and bills from 1983, […]
David Flores | February 28, 2017
This op-ed originally ran in the Baltimore Sun. Last summer, when floodwaters nearly wiped out Old Ellicott City, many people looked at the damage as bad luck caused by a 500-year storm. The truth is that such storms are no longer rare events. The Northeast United States has experienced a staggering 70 percent increase in […]
Evan Isaacson | February 27, 2017
The ascension of Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ushers in a new chapter in the long story of cooperative federalism in the administration of U.S. environmental laws. Pruitt's words and actions as the Attorney General of Oklahoma suggest that, as much as any other issue, idea, or policy, federalism will […]