BIG NEWS: THE AUTHORITY QUESTION WAS ACTUALLY MENTIONED ON PUBLIC TV!

BIG NEWS:  THE AUTHORITY QUESTION WAS ACTUALLY MENTIONED ON PUBLIC TV!

by Michael Peroutka

Recently, on Public TV's "NewsHour" Gwen Ifill interviewed Jeff Holmstead of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council. The topic: A recent regulation "promulgated," as they say, by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regarding the coal industry. This regulation, which mandates a cut in carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants by up to 30 percent by 2030, would, as Holmstead pointed out, cost many jobs in the coal industry, raise our electric bills and, of course, not affect our coal competitors in places like China and India who are huge polluters. 

OK. But, the most interesting and important part of the Ifill-Holmstead exchange occurred when Ifill said, flatly: "The EPA is empowered to set law and that is what the Supreme Court says they ought to do. And they are doing it."

To which Holmstead replied that it was troubling and "unConstitutional" that the EPA would now mandate something by regulation after Congress had earlier rejected the current EPA proposal. 

Now, what's important about this exchange is that it is one of the few times, over many decades, that we have ever heard a spokesman for anyindustry attack, correctly, an agency regulation because that regulation was unconstitutional.  Whether Mr. Holmstead is asserting is that the regulation is null and void, of no effect, the empty set.

Back in the day, in the Declaration of Independence, the Founders of America called this a usurpation.  When an official or a government institution tried to do something it had no authority to do, (like the EPA is doing here), they referred to this as “pretended legislation”.  And they refused to validate it or to obey it.

They were able to see things this way because, in their Biblical worldview, the state was to obey God, not play God.

And finally, Ifill is flat wrong when she asserts that the EPA "is empowered to set law" because the Supreme Court says the EPA ought to do this.

The power to make laws is vested solely in Congress. And even then, Congress-made laws are valid only if they are in conformity to God's Word and the US Constitution.

So, Mr. Holmstead actually raised “the authority question” on Public Television, and somehow, his question made it through the final edit and actually appeared on public television.

Regrettably, the question went unanswered.

But then, it is Public Television, and since Public Television itself is not authorized by Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution, it follows that there is no authority for Public Television.

And that’s why even the mention of “the authority question” on a Public Television news program is, well, big news.

 

This is MAP for IOTC bringing you TAV.