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Joe Biden’s DOJ is Claiming “There is No Constitutional Right to a Stable Climate” (jacobin.com)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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[–] 15 points 3 years ago (8 children)

I mean, that's correct. There is in fact nothing about a stable climate in the US constitution. The courts need to have at least a pretense of interpreting existing laws rather than dictating what the laws ought to be.

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  • [–] -1 points 3 years ago (7 children)

    Isn’t that rather obtuse though. Is not life liberty and pursuit of happiness enumerated through the Declaration of Independence?

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  • [–] 7 points 3 years ago* (5 children)

    The Declaration of Independence is not technically a legal document. But even if we ignore that, it would still quite a stretch to go from a general right to life to a right to some particular environmental policy. It's unreasonable to expect the government to always take the course of action that prevents the most deaths (or else the government would be required to ban driving, unhealthy lifestyles, etc.) and once we accept that reasonable tradeoffs between "life" and other policy goals are acceptable then we must (IMO) concede that Congress (and agencies empowered by Congress) have the authority to make these tradeoffs except when there are specific Constitutional directives to the contrary.

    I would go even further and argue that a policy intended to reduce global warming is not necessarily the one that best defends the right to life (or rather the American right to life) as opposed to a policy of burning more fossil fuels now in order to build a stronger foundation for American security in a world destabilized by global warming.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (4 children)

    Considering the idea that judges are actually using logic. I call bullshit on your argument

    The constitution says whatever the heck we want it to mean.

    I don’t think your logic is sound is what I’m saying. I don’t have to accept your premises.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (3 children)

    The constitution doesn't say whatever you want it to mean; it says whatever the supreme court wants it to mean. IMO they do sometime make decisions which aren't actually based on the constitution (although it's funny that no one can agree about which decisions those are) but they haven't been acting as if the constitution says what you think it does, so it isn't "obtuse" for the DOJ to argue that there's no constitutional right to a specific environmental policy.

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    No, it's not what the supreme court wants it to mean, it's what the supreme court interprets it to mean, and that needs to either coincide with or directly strike down existing supreme court decisions. And it only decides based on cases that's brought to it.

    So today's Supreme Court can't simply device today that the Constitution implies a positive right to a stable climate, they'd first need a court case and then need to justify that position based on existing supreme court decisions.

    If the Supreme Court decides something completely nonsensical, Congress can override it. If justices continually act in bad faith, they can be impeached and removed. There's a check on the Supreme Court, so the court won't just go rogue and decide to invalidate or create laws as they see fit.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    The supreme court has absolute discretion regarding which cases it takes, and someone is always bringing new cases about pretty much every controversial issue in the hope that the supreme court will decide to take one of them. Then in theory the court rules according to the constitution, but there are enough different interpretations that one can be found to support almost any decision. Congress is too divided to override any decision that isn't literally insane.

    I think the supreme court still spends most of its time doing what it is intended to do, but it has also become an instrument for making dramatic changes to the law while congress is too divided to do so. (Or else why would the political affiliation of the president nominating a new judge matter so much?)

    But with all that out of the way, the point I'm trying to make is that it isn't unreasonable for the DOJ to argue that the constitution doesn't say anything about the climate when that is literally true. Maybe the court will rule that the constitution implies something related to climate change (although I wouldn't bet on that) but some commenters here are claiming that the DOJ is being ridiculous and I think these commenters are failing to make the is-ought distinction.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    Obtuse would be interpreting that phrase to include a responsibility for the federal government to preserve the global climate as it was in the particular time in which the constitution was written.

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