Charles Rotter The Fifth Circuit decided State of Mississippi v. Department of Energy yesterday. Seven states petitioned. Seven states won. The Department of Energy's rule on home cooking appliances goes back to the agency. That is the easy part. The interesting part is who was defending the rule, and what that same department was doing across town while it did. First, let me take some air out of the balloon. This was not the gas stove ban You will see headlines today saying the court killed the...
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Thanks for this. All those details are almost fascinating but at least an interesting look into the bureaucratic mind.
Pardon my amused point of view, but it is hard for me to fathom a bureaucrat has a functioning mind. 😉
Bottom line? If you use gas appliances buy them before Democrats are back in control.
>”Under the ordinary process, an agency proposes a rule, takes comments, answers them, and issues a final rule.”
Having worked in processes in which the EPA was effectively the Chair, I experienced first hand that “under the ordinary process…” comments are not necessarily “answered”, they are frequently evaded, challenged, ignored, glossed over without substantive resolution, all in pursuit of a pre-drafted agenda that is never open for honest discussion. I was shocked by the treatment some of my comments on a proposed Standard received. For example when pointing out the need to correct a flawed piece of arithmetic, technically called an “illegal procedure” in math circles, they replied “not at this time”. Yowza! Another, “True but we must look into it.” The comment resolution process is to “look into it” not to ignore it and then say, “Well, time’s up!”
“The agency publishes the rule as final.”
That part administrators are happy with, if they get to set the rule.
“It takes effect unless somebody objects.” That’s a definite maybe. It depends on how deeply you challenge the narrative behind the rule. Trying to ban gas by “cleverly” manipulating the rule-making process, by committee stacking, by ignoring “inconvenient” published articles, by crushing dissent with excuses like, “Yeah but its only one person point out the flaw…” undermines any confidence there is a neutral party at the helm. When an ideology-motivated group successfully executes an institutional capture plan, the only protection the public has is a compulsory comment period and properly adjudicated comment addressing process, typically 60 days.