February 21, 2012
All Hail Obama
By Harvey M. Sheldon
The willingness of the White House to exceed the Constitutional powers of the President and assert authority beyond that directed in federal statutes is starting to show up more frequently. In the past week on American Thinker, John F. DeLeo documented President Obama's deliberate expansion of the United States' Export Import Bank to turn it into a lender competing with ordinary banks, rather than a prudent facilitator of American companies' ability to engage in foreign commerce.
Obama's willingness to take over companies and bully lenders into giving up their priority rights to be paid their capital back was evident at the beginning of his term, in the cases of the GM and Chrysler bailouts. The other day, he moved unilaterally to change the defense capability of the nation by decreeing the destruction of hundreds of nuclear weapons to a level far below that the Senate authorized in a recent treaty with Russia. Also Joe Newby of the Spokane Examiner reports that on Thursday, House Speaker John Boehner told radio talk show host Laura Ingraham that he has "great concerns" the President may be overstepping his Constitutional authority in bypassing Congress on laws regarding mortgages and student loans.
Under the radar, another very current Obama move is seeking to create applicable law in the field of coastal zone regulation, respecting the oceans and the Great Lakes. The common law and Constitutional tradition of the United States provides that states own and govern the natural resources under public waters in their territory. Nevertheless, since 2010, when he created an Ocean Policy Council, Obama has directed that the federal government agencies conduct themselves according to United Nations "sustainability" doctrine and treaties not ratified by the Senate of the United States. The fruition of this effort is imminent, and it will put a federal roadblock on coastal zone development by imposing requirements not contained in existing statutes such as the Clean Water Act. The Republican leadership in Congress has complained to no avail. The deadline for public comments on the Draft Implementation Plan closes in a few days, on February 27th. I hope interested states and companies will point out the overreach, but most are not focused on the issue.
This "end around" the statutes ploy is now commonplace in Obama's use of the United States EPA to change the way American laws are enforced. Instead of obeying them, the EPA has skirted their duties in deference to extremist environmentalist dogma. In respect to so called greenhouse gas regulation, rather than seriously review all of the best science as the Clean Air Act directs, they simply regurgitated the United Nations' highly politicized IPCC report and called it a consensus that man is causing dangerous global warming. The supposed IPCC science has been discredited on several fronts, not the least of which being their predictions are not coming true. But nevertheless, what USEPA originally dished out as a finding to deal with automotive exhaust, is now taking the time and attention of American utilities and manufacturers of all sorts of products, even before the courts have ruled on the original decision over CO2. I personally believe the cost and turmoil of the CO2 scare will likely go down in history as the costliest authoritarian myth since Hitler stirred up Germany with the notion of Aryan Supremacy.
So, all hail Obama. This brazen man who has successfully bluffed his way to the White House despite the Communist and otherwise anti-American people who have tutored and assisted him on his way, is apparently feeling so sure of himself that he is already acting beyond his constitutional obligation to "faithfully execute the laws", even before his reelection.
Mr. Sheldon is a Chicago attorney concentrating in environmental law. He is a graduate of Amherst College and Harvard Law School, as well as a former regional counsel for the USEPA. The views expressed are his own and not on behalf of any client or firm.
