The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit summarily vaporized 46 years of Federal environmental regulations. Writing in a case called Marin Audubon Society, et al v. FAA, et al, the majority of a three-judge panel ruled that the Council on Environmental Quality, a cabal inside the Executive Office of the President charged with ensuring that National Environmental Protection Act requirements are interpreted uniformly across the federal government, had illegally used the Federal Register to publish that guidance thereby giving citizens, agencies, and even the courts the impression that their internal guidance had the authority of law. //

The CEQ regulations, which purport to govern how all federal agencies must comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, are ultra vires.

Ultra vires means the CEQ was acting "beyond the legal scope of it authority."

The court goes on to detail the shenanigans by which an advisory body with no regulatory authority was able to write environmental regulations for the entire United States for nearly a half-century just because it decided it could.

Making the case even more awesome is that it was set off by enviro-wackos suing the FAA for allowing sightseeing flights near some national parks. The enviros claimed the FAA used the wrong standard established by the CEQ to permit the flight. They ended up being right in a backhanded kind of way. //

frylock234
13 hours ago
I love the smell of bureaucracy burning in the morning. Which windows do I leave open to enjoy that scent? Do you think Mrs. Walz would know?