Posted on 12/19/2016 8:19:53 AM PST by Olog-hai
No way.
Show me the Article or Clause in the Constitution that empowers Congress to so.
If they can transfer their power and authority to insane bureaucrats, can they transfer it to, say, Fidel Castro?
Aside from the fact he's dead, why not?
In the second paragraph of the article it says Obama imposes stricter guidelines for exceptions to the rule and at the bottom of the article it says the coal companies have to do restoration work with "native trees and vegetation".
The law passed creating the Office of Surface Mining, Department of the Interior, was approved by congress and signed by Jimmah Cahtah.
I was mining coal when this law took effect. 95 percent of the small, family owned coal mines (up to 200,000 tons/year) were put out of business. Our company survived, barely.
The bill passed in ‘78 and took effect in ‘79.
Most coal states had their own reclamation regulations covering surface mines and the federal rule allowed states to adopt a federally approved, state run program, with federal oversight.
There were weeks when we had a state inspector and two or three federal inspectors at our three dragline (eight yard machines) operation.
Then, the Mine Safety and Health Administration inspector would spend a couple days working over our hard hats, backup beepers, dust, highwalls. etc.
We had a full time employee (along with myself) to manage the violations, orders, new permit applications, etc. We also employed two full time coal geologists to write permits and a local county PE engineer to stamp the permits with his approval.
The original stream issue didn’t present too much difficulty since our pits gathered and collected rain water run off in PE approved ponds at the downhill corners of the area. The most difficult challenge was “prime farmlands.”
We could return the reclaimed land to 95 percent of previous row crop productivity but prime farmlands required 100 per cent.
The state SCS had previously identified “prime lands” in spotty sections of non-prime. These could be as little as one or two acres in a 60 or 100 acre farm.
We never had a challenge to our reclamation practices since we picked up all the top soil and good quality clay for stockpiling with 637 scrapers. We also practiced contemporary reclamation, generally mining uphill, with the scrapers buzzing round and round as the pit was opened for coal removal, then the next pit created.
I had 60 employees on three shifts, plus two shifts in our wash plant.
https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf
Agencies get their authority to issue regulations from laws (statutes) enacted by Congress. In some cases, the President may delegate existing Presidential authority to an agency.
Typically, when Congress passes a law to create an agency, it grants that agency general authority to regulate certain activities within our society. Congress may also pass a law that more specifically directs an agency to solve a particular problem or accomplish a certain goal.
That’s not constitutional. The legislature has no power under Article 1 to delegate any of its enumerated power to the executive branch.
Take it up with the Supreme Court, not me.
The Supreme Court has in the past (and most recently with a ruling on the EPA) confirmed that regulatory agencies can write regulations.
So regardless of what you think, it is Constitutional (for now).
No, that doesn’t make it constitutional either.
Unless you’re saying that Dred Scott was constitutional too?
Constitutionality does not change with epochs of time.
That’s what this election was about.
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