There already is legislation for that, the court is ordering EPA to do the right thing and use it instead of trying to be lazy and possibly abusive.
See my previous comments on the matter:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875212
See my previous comments on the matter:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39875212
https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_-_P...
This was obvious.
If that's not the worst, how do you define worst?
If you bothered to read the ruling, you would learn that the EPA specifically exempted ongoing processes as of and after 2015 under Section 5. This obviously exempts Inhance's fluorination process and is in line with Section 5's wording.
You would also learn that the EPA did not include fluorination among its list of things to regulate.
The EPA then cited those regulations under Section 5 to order Inhance to stop their decades-old fluorination process.
That is simply bullshit, that is pulling regulations out of thin air. Note that the court explicitly cites Section 6 is what the EPA should use to regulate PFOA, which the court explicitly says is by itself not wrong.
Any reasonable person should read the ruling and most likely be applauding the court for bringing a misguided executive agency into line, because the United States of America is a country governed by rule of law and the EPA in this instance did not follow due process.
I did read the ruling[1], and unless the ruling is straight up perjury the EPA dropped the ball.
Criticizing the court for not ruling the way you wanted, and presumably without reading the ruling because you're grossly disregarding their value, is unreasonable and erodes rule of law.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39876314
>a country where citizens get to distrust their government.
And the court called out the government (the EPA) for being unworthy of trust in this instance.
Indeed, the court is taking a non-binding FAQ on the EPA website, and treating that as more legally constraining on the EPA than the actual regulations they issue. That's f'ing ridiculous.
And to make things more ridiculous, they created a binding implication, where non actually existed in the proposed language that the 2015 exemption would not apply to ongoing uses.
>In response to growing concerns about PFAS, the EPA proposed a new SNUR in January 2015, “designating as a significant new use manufacturing . . . or processing of an identified subset of [PFAS] for any use that will not be ongoing after December 31, 2015, and all other [PFAS] for which there are currently no ongoing uses.”
>The proposed rule also made clear that the SNUR would apply only to “any use not ongoing as of the date on which this proposed rule is published.” Id.
So not only are the EPA aware of what Section 5's "new use" language means and tried to twist it during enforcement, they ignored their own very specific definition to try and regulate Inhance.
That is what the courts are telling to EPA to stop doing. The courts are ordering the EPA to cite the appropriate law and write appropriate regulations following due process first, otherwise known as Section 6, in order to regulate Inhance and their fluorination process which the court reaffirms is something the EPA can do.
They clarified the definition of "new use", but PFAS was already covered by the "new use" as defined in the statute.
Ergo, judicial perjury.
That's not what anyone said though. There's a difference between disagreeing and being unreasonable. Here, you too are being unreasonable because you've purposefully skipped past this in order to twist this even more politically.
There was argument over how to interpret the statute and one of the attorneys tried buffaloing the judge with “Well actually judge, I’m on the committee that drafted the bill and our intent,” The judge cut him off and retorted that he didn’t care what anyone intended, he was going to go by what the statute actually said.
I made a mental note to never argue legislative intent in that court.
It’s impossible to write any law which covers every scenario and is not either overbroad (penalizes actually desirable or ‘ok’ behavior in some cases), not being possible to get around for bad behavior, or so vague it heavily restricts desired behavior.
Hell, look at the legal battles and drama around murder trials or corporate malfeasance for clear examples. And those are the ones where the bad actors were so clearly being bad that professionals felt they could nail them to the wall in court.
Also, as the old saw goes - ‘if the letter of the law is not in your favor, argue the intent.
If the intent of the law is not in your favor, argue the facts.
If neither the letter nor the intent of the law is in your favor, pound the table.’
Carl Sandburg perhaps?
For example - did someone commit first degree murder or something else (manslaughter, second degree murder?), if they intentionally laid in wait and shot someone they thought was person A - but it was actually person B, who looked similar but they actually didn’t know at all.
After all, they didn’t intentionally commit premeditated murder against person B did they? But they did definitely premeditate something that became a murder!
So was this negligent homicide in fact (they accidentally killed simeone who wasn’t their target due to negligent behavior), or first degree murder (intent) because they intentionally murdered a human being with premeditation - though it was actually an accident they killed that particular human being, and they had no premeditation or intent to kill that particular human?
TL;DR there’s definitely room to dispute whether this decision was merely “calling balls and strikes” based on the meaning of the law or kinda a damn stretch.
A good judge who recognizes their intended role in the system. They are there to interpret the law and apply them, not to create them.
That sometimes leads to situations like this where the outcome is silly, but that's the fault of the system, not the judge.
If we decide it's worth letting unelected and mostly unaccountable dictators write laws, then we could fix this particular problem. IMHO it's not worth it
In a long running country, stability and longevity is preferred, so strict absolute adherence to process is critical.
And you can’t have both.