[thepasswordis]

Then tell the EPA to start lobbying the NRC to allow new nuclear plants and start allowing innovation in the space.

The EPA is not a legislative body. If you want to make it illegal to run a coal plant because you feel like it’s your duty to force some pain on the citizenry for what you perceive as a higher calling: pass a law.

[kennywinker]

> If you want to make it illegal to run a coal plant because you feel like it’s your duty to force some pain on the citizenry for what you perceive as a higher calling: pass a law.

Nobody wants what you described. Global warming is literally killing people by the thousands every year now. Wars are coming, mass migrations and climate refugees. This is a crisis, it’s just not a localized one. And it doesn’t have to be painful. Building + running windmills, solar, even nuclear, those are all good jobs.

You might just as well frame it “if 19 states want to make the world suffer so a few corporations can profit and people don’t have to re-train”.

[throwaway0a5e]

>>If you want to make it illegal to run a coal plant because you feel like it’s your duty to force some pain on the citizenry for what you perceive as a higher calling

>Nobody wants what you described

Do you think everyone hear has the memory of a goldfish or are you just lying to us without a care in the world?

We can literally go into any HN thread on the subject of coal and see tons of comments to the tune of "this will cause people a bunch of pain but outlawing X, Y and Z or taxing them to create the same effect is necessary in order to get off of fossil fuels therefore it is necessary for the greater good". I don't disagree with the premise that it's gonna hurt but just turning around and saying "nobody's saying that" when it suits you is beyond bad faith behavior.

People like you are just as bad for progress as the coal lobby is because you undermine the people telling it like it is.

[kennywinker]

Op’s message was that people think it’s their duty to force pain on people for some higher calling.

As I said, nobody wants that. Emphasis on “wants”, emphasis on “that”. The same people calling for climate action are the ones calling for a just transitions - UBI, green new deals, etc. so if they were to get their way it wouldn’t actually be painful. That’s the “wants” part.

But even if we don’t get those things, it actually has to happen - it’s not some random desire. It’s an existential threat to human life. So, it has to be done at whatever cost. Not because they “believe in some higher calling” - because the facts are that this is going to hurt everyone if we don’t deal with it at great scale asap. And that’s the “that” part.

[KingOfCoders]

If you want airspace to be regulated, pass a law (cancel the FAA). If you want frequencies to be regulated, pass a law (cancel the FCC). If you want individual food and drugs to be regulated, pass a law (cancel the FDA). If you want cars to be regulated, ...

[Sporktacular]

"duty to force some pain on the citizenry"

You do know that coal power kills more people than any other power source right? That makes health care a hidden cost, paid by the citizenry, to subsidise an irresponsible energy industry.

Think much?

[thepasswordis]

Why is this so confusing?

Then pass a law.

I hope every coal plant on earth goes away forever. I hate coal plants. Get rid of them and PASS A LAW restricting their use.

[Sporktacular]

Have you seen how hard it is to pass a contentious law these days? Most people can agree about its merits but it's naive to act as if special interests haven't manufactured the contention and captured the regulatory and legislative processes.

We don't have the luxury of proceduralism any more.

[thepasswordis]

Think about what you’re saying. Democracy is hard so let’s throw it all away? Do you realize where that leads?

[Sporktacular]

Don't be hyperbolic. We had democracy before Coney-Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were appointed.

Hamstringing the EPA over a contrived technicality in the wording of its charter is a travesty of justice. It's public utility is obvious. It's in the name.

[phaistra]

> Have you seen how hard it is to pass a contentious law these days?

So what? Not the SC's problem.

> Most people can agree about its merits but it's naive to act as if special interests haven't manufactured the contention and captured the regulatory and legislative processes.

So if special interests have captured the regulatory body, how is letting them keep (or gain) their unelected power any better?

> We don't have the luxury of proceduralism any more.

I can use the same argument about any topic we disagree about. Do you not see the problem with this line of thinking?

[Sporktacular]

"Not the SC's problem."

Indeed, it's precisely to the contrary and actually to the new SC's advantage. Republican obstructionism is precisely why conservative judges have adopted this new commitment to originalism. But on the other hand, isn't a clean environment a problem for us all?

"So if special interests have captured the regulatory body, how is letting them keep (or gain) their unelected power any better?"

Because this executive has been trying to fix it (https://grist.org/politics/epa-joe-biden-environmental-law-e...) and congress has been trying to keep it broken (eg. https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/589767-gop-sen...). This ruling takes power away from the executive and hands it to an even more captured, paralysed congress. Whether the EPA derives its mandate from the executive or the legislature makes no difference since BOTH are elected bodies. Why mindlessly repeat that red herring? Obviously the real issue is whether it's effective and working for the public interest or for special interests.

"I can use the same argument about any topic we disagree about. Do you not see the problem with this line of thinking?"

No you can't, except in cases where the importance of the procedures themselves are outweighed by the importance of what they are preventing. For a decade the SC was okay with the EPA using the clean air act to limit carbon, and then it wasn't. The only thing that changed is the political constitution of the court which has exploited technicalities and procedural hurdles to prevent the addressing of an urgent, existential threat. Or is it just a coincidence that the sudden desire for more carefully crafted legislation comes from conservatives who have always opposed stronger environmental regulation?

It's a pretty narrow, justified case I'm making against excessive proceduralism. Do you not see a problem with checking tickets for lifeboats?

[mrpopo]

> Then tell the EPA to start lobbying the NRC to start building new nuclear plants

No, stopping the coal plants is the end goal. Whether it's by saving energy or building alternative sources like solar/hydro/nuclear is irrelevant to the EPA's goal (protecting the environment/mitigating climate change).

Innovation will not save us, the tools have been here for decades.

I agree this should be passed as a law.

[toomuchtodo]

Can’t pass a law, too many climate change deniers in political positions.

We’ll have to find other mechanisms to force coal plants offline. Lots of tools available besides the EPA.

[codefreeordie]

"can't pass a law because I can't get enough voters to want it"

Sounds like maybe you don't believe in democracy

[enragedcacti]

> "can't pass a law because I can't get enough voters to want it"

Voters overwhelmingly want regulation on climate change. 41 senators representing roughly 22% of voters don't.

> Sounds like maybe you don't believe in democracy

if you're going to make snide remarks you better be accurate in your claims.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/03/09/americans-l...

[InitialLastName]

What the US has is (intentionally and explicitly) not a democracy. It has a wide array of structures intended to undermine the will of the majority.

[codefreeordie]

This is true. We have a democratic republic rather than a plain democracy, because the founders were (rightly) concerned that plain democracy produces a tyrannical majority, and wanted to create a free society which would only impose government authority when there was broad-based and widespread agreement.

Indeed, the founders cared so much about this that they wrote into the Constitution a guarantee not of a democratic form of government for the States, but a republican one

U.S. const. Art 4 Sec 4:

> The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

In theory, this guarantee could be satisfied by entirely nondemocratic governments, so long as they were republics. Courts have not really tackled too many of the details of this clause over the years, primarily on the grounds that the courts largely feel that they are unable to offer remedies. (https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/inte...)

[throwaway0a5e]

The purpose of those structures is to prevent a razor thin majority from going off half cocked and doing something there isn't sufficient support for.

I think you need to take a look at federal controlled substances policy. Even with resounding majorities in favor of various degrees of changing things in a particular direction the small steps that everyone can agree on still don't get done. The incentive structure for implementing popular change is broken and the difference between 50.0001% and 60% doesn't change that.

[InitialLastName]

I'm not at all arguing that those structures are delivering value in their present formulation, just that they are present, they are non-democratic, and that was intentional (so arguments predicated on raw democracy are either disingenuous or misguided).

I think I would argue that the simplest first cuts to untying the current knot are to rethink the whole "legal bribery of elected officials" thing and find a reasonable way to enable multiple parties so that coalitions can align along a more complex set of needs than two sets of (absolutist) wedge issues.

[toomuchtodo]

Sometimes I don’t. The climate doesn’t care about your vote or belief system. So, you have to work around democracy. Play to win, the stakes are too high not to.

[codefreeordie]

You probably won't like it when your opponents start playing to win democracy be damned

[toomuchtodo]

They already are. What do you think this is? They spent decades to enable this, they’ve said so publicly. Mitch McConnell’s book is even called “The Long Game.” They are knowingly, actively subverting democracy for their own ends.

So, here we are.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mitch-mcconnell-dark-lord-s... (the Fox News article slug even refers to him as the dark lord)

[codefreeordie]

You know, it's funny.

(well, "funny")

Each party's advocates say "the other side has been playing to win rules and democracy be damned for decades, and if we don't start ignoring the rules and playing dirty, they'll kill us all".

Each side claims to love democracy but to be willing to destroy it only because doing so is necessary to protect them from the Enemy.

I think that maybe most people don't actually care about democracy, they just want to win the war.

[politician]

100%. We need to stop treating the judiciary as if it were royalty, and instead operate the government using the established rules for change.

That means forcing Congress to accept its role and do its job instead of being a place where the members spend most of their time fundraising and trying to keep their seats.