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Ethanol E10 vs E???
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WYDave
Posted 11/2/2006 00:09 (#57314 - in reply to #57107)
Subject: RE: EPA ??


Wyoming

Where do they get their power?

From the US Congress, via the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, and as amended in 1975 and 1982.

Do they answer to any one?

Technically, yes, they answer to the POTUS and the Congress. In practice, they answer to no one.

Can their rules be voted out in congress?

Yes and no.

The Congress has given bureaucracies such as the IRS, EPA, et al, very sweeping powers to set policy. The EPA can set standards, rules and policy. The way this is done is the same way rulemaking is done by most all non-classified agencies in the US government: a "NPRM" (Notice of Proposed Rulemaking) is published in the Federal Register. The agency lists all the issues of the proposed rule. This publication starts a "comments period" for feedback from the public, lawmakers, state and local governments, etc. The agency must respond to the comments after the comment period closes. The agency must publish any changes to the proposed rule -- if there were any changes, another comment period starts.

When the comment period(s) are finally closed, the agency in question will publish yet another notice in the Federal Register announcing the new rule, when/how it will be implemented and so on. At the effective date, the rule becomes administrative law.

Before I became involved with federal land management issues in Nevada, I didn't understand how agencies like the EPA, USFS, et al, made these "rules" and gave them the force of law. Now I fully understand how this crap works and here's the shocking truth about this stuff: Congress has basically turned over their power to these bureaucracies. The ability of the Congress to thwart some of these agencies in their rule making is limited, without substantial exertion by the Congress. And we all know that the words "substantial exertion" and "the Congress" don't go together unless there is sex, booze or money involved. For their part, the agencies involved are unelected, unaccountable and have created their own constituencies to lobby the Congress for more, more, more money every year.

Here is an example: the Endangered Species Act funding authorization has expired as of 01 Oct 1992. Yet the USFWS continues to try to list new species as "threatened" or "endangered" or my new favorite "species of concern" (which is a term of art that appears nowhere in any enabling legislation) and they keep getting money thrown at them by the Congress to continue their silliness, which the Congress does, because the Congress won't examine how large a failure the ESA has been in the last 30+ years.

 

Here's a link to the Federal Register: 

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/browse.html 

And here is an example of a EPA "notice of proposed rule":

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20061800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2006/E6-18379.htm

 

 

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