Posted on 03/19/2012 4:28:54 AM PDT by SJackson
The Obama administration issued a new executive order last Friday entitled “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” The Executive Order cited the powers granted to the president by the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended, and the president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief as the basis for asserting more breathtaking presidential powers over key sectors of the U.S. economy, not only during wars and national emergencies, but also during peacetime.
The new executive order gives the president and his executive branch agency heads far more power than was contemplated by Congress in the Defense Production Act (“Act”).
At least, the definition of “national defense” in both the Act and executive order are the same:
programs for military and energy production or construction, military or critical infrastructure assistance to any foreign nation, homeland security, stockpiling, space, and any directly related activity. Such term includes emergency preparedness activities conducted pursuant to title VI of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. 5195 et seq., and critical infrastructure protection and restoration.
The difference lies in how much discretion the president has to intervene in and control major portions of the economy if he or his delegated agency heads believe it is appropriate to do so to promote the national defense.
The Act authorizes the president to prioritize contract performance and to “allocate materials, services, and facilities in such manner, upon such conditions, and to such extent as he shall deem necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense.” The executive order follows this statutory grant as far as it goes, but then goes much further, particularly with respect to the energy industry.
Part II of Obama’s executive order (“Priorities and Allocations”) delegates to a broad array of executive agency heads the president’s authority over contract prioritization and allocation of materials, services and facilities across all major segments of the private sector economy, including agriculture, “all forms of energy,” “health resources,” “all forms of civil transportation,” “water resources,” and a catch-all for “all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.”
The executive order delegates to the agency heads, with policy and oversight responsibilities affecting all these different industries, the authority to “issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources and establish standards and procedures by which the authority shall be used to promote the national defense, under both emergency and non-emergency conditions.” Their authority is be exercised to support programs deemed by the secretary of defense, secretary of energy or secretary of homeland security to be necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense.
The Defense Production Act does not purport to affect so many industries. For example, nowhere are “health resources” even mentioned, much less defined, in the Act, as it is in the executive order.
The executive order is particularly over-reaching concerning the energy industry sector. When setting forth the president’s powers with respect to “the allocation of, or the priority performance under contracts or orders…relating to, materials, equipment, and services in order to maximize domestic energy supplies,” the Defense Production Act places strict conditions on the exercise of such powers.
Specifically, the Act states that the statutory authority to exercise such presidential powers:
may not be used to require priority performance of contracts or orders, or to control the distribution of any supplies of materials, services, and facilities in the marketplace, unless the President finds that—
(A) such materials, services, and facilities are scarce, critical, and essential—
(i) to maintain or expand exploration, production, refining, transportation;
(ii) to conserve energy supplies; or
(iii) to construct or maintain energy facilities; and
(B) maintenance or expansion of exploration, production, refining, transportation, or conservation of energy supplies or the construction and maintenance of energy facilities cannot reasonably be accomplished without exercising the authority specified in paragraph (1) of this subsection.
The Obama administration’s executive order skips right over the special statutory limitations on its executive authority to intervene in the energy industry sector. Instead, the Obama administration gives itself the direct authority to centrally manage the entire energy industry, encompassing fossil fuels and all forms of alternative energy, whenever and however it deems “necessary” or “appropriate” to promote the national defense.
In short, with its executive order in hand, the anti-fossil fuel Obama administration will have unfettered powers to manage “all forms of energy,” including its “production, conservation, use, control, and distribution.” Energy Secretary Steven Chu will be able to direct the allocation of private resources to the Obama administration’s green energy projects and clamp down further on fossil fuel production without having to worry about Congress getting in the way.
Chu can decide, for example, that the current level of carbon fuel production and usage in this country is creating a risk of global climate change, resulting severe storm damage that could conceivably imperil our national defense. He has the authority to make such a determination and issue regulations on his own initiative under the executive order. Forget about the Environmental Protection Agency. The Obama administration has found a better shortcut to impose cap and trade type restrictions through “allocation” of “energy resources” so long as the Energy Secretary determines in writing that it is an “appropriate” means to “promote “national defense” (which, don’t forget, includes “energy production” as part of its definition).
The executive order grants to the president’s executive branch agency heads the authority to manage much of the rest of the economy as well, if deemed “appropriate” to “promote” national defense under programs approved by the secretary of defense, secretary of energy or secretary of homeland security. This includes health care (or, as the executive order refers to it, “health resources”). The term “health resources,” by the way, means “drugs, biological products, medical devices, materials, facilities, health supplies, services and equipment required to diagnose, mitigate or prevent the impairment of, improve, treat, cure, or restore the physical or mental health conditions of the population.”
Thus, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius will have even more power than Obamacare provides her to prioritize and allocate all the nation’s “health resources” as she sees fit, including under “non-emergency conditions,” as long as it can be justified as “appropriate” to “promote” the broadly defined “national defense.”
In addition to citing the Defense Production Act, the Obama administration also bases its far-reaching grab for power over the American economy on the president’s constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. The problem for Obama is that another Democratic president, Harry Truman, tried such an assertion of power during wartime and was slapped down by the Supreme Court. In a 1952 case, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) – decided two years after the original Defense Production Act and while the Korean War was still underway – the Supreme Court held that the president did not have inherent constitutional powers to direct the secretary of commerce to take possession of and operate most of the nation’s steel mills. “The order cannot properly be sustained as an exercise of the President’s military power as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces,” the Supreme Court concluded.
President Obama has once again grossly overstepped the bounds of his authority. While not yet posing a threat of all-out martial law, as some have suggested, Obama’s latest executive order represents another blatant move of his toward centralized government control of the American economy.
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/03/19/another-obama-power-grab/
Make my day and try it. As long as I have firearms the pencil necked government weasel is not getting his way.
The power of Executive Orders is the biggest mistake this country ever made. With the right Congress, any President can become a dictator, and that’s what we’ve got now. I despise politicians.
Hey Congress......yeah, I know a lot of you guys and gals on the Hill read this.....when are you going to grow a collective set and explain to this idiot (our Dear Leader) what “separate and equal” branches of government means?
How long are you going to be marginalized by this usurper? How long will you sit on your backsides and ignore this overt takeover? How long will you remain silent while a dictator embeds his Socialism into the fabric of our government and society like a nasty tick on a dog?
Get on the stick, go**amn it. It’s what you’re paid to do.
Thus, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius will have even more power than Obamacare provides her to prioritize and allocate all the nation’s “health resources” as she sees fit, including under “non-emergency conditions,” as long as it can be justified as “appropriate” to “promote” the broadly defined “national defense.”
This may be the real purpose, to make sure ObamaCare is implemented despite being declared unconstitutional.
I know it sounds bad, but it must be ok, I haven’t heard one republican Congressman or Senator make a complaint about it. /s/
Looking forward to hearing if Rush covers this today.
“I know it sounds bad, but it must be ok, I haven’t heard one republican Congressman or Senator make a complaint about it. /s/”
Or presidential candidate, for that matter...
And the House republican majority sits and drools.
To emphasize your point, it has taken 16 calendar days (11 working days) to receive my IRS refund (as small as it is). In the past it has normally taken 3 calendar days (all electronic submissions). It is obvious that they think it's their money!!!
The last thing we should do is to turn the legislative branch into a bunch of placeholders for the real Holders (pun intended) of power.
Michelle Obama
“Military leaders … tell us that when more than one in four young people are unqualified for military service because of their weight,” the first lady says in the prepared remarks, “childhood obesity isn’t just a public health threat, it’s not just an economic threat, it’s a national security threat as well.”
Why would Congress complain? They all voted for the Defense Act. They probably all know we are headed for a total economic collapse and are just getting ready to try to manage the chaos.
The drumbeat of Bolshevik Dictator Baby-Doc Barak continues to grow louder - - - .
...just because it needs sayin' again.
This essay by Ann Barnhardt on this EO is a MUST read.
Barnhardt: Why The March 16th, 2012 White House Executive Order Is Different
And they won’t, those jelly-spined RINO cowards.
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