The Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Is a Blow to Stopping Climate Change

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-supreme-courts-latest-decision-is-a-blow-for-stopping-climate-change/

by Tozen • 4 years ago

64 148 4 years ago

scientificamerican.com

pstuart5• 4 years ago

The best court money can buy!

mlindner15• 4 years ago

The court isn't influenced by money.

pstuart5• 4 years ago

It was in its composition -- https://www.acslaw.org/analysis/reports/dark-money/

gaws• 4 years ago

The court isn't influenced by money.

You buy the senators who choose the judges and the presidents who appoint them.

stjohnswarts10• 4 years ago

lol. they just flat out lied about Roe and "settled law" during their interviews and you're standing up for them? Come on. They absolutely sold their soul to get on the bench, there's not a single doubt there. Except Thomas, he is just a plain old evil grumpy old man.

tamaharbor• 4 years ago

Legitimate question: How can US measures stop climate change if many other countries are planning to construct and operate hundreds of coal plants for electric generation?

dataflow• 4 years ago

In theory at least it might develop new technologies that might change the direction other countries want to go, too.

In practice I'm not sure how anyone is going to make a dent without switching to nuclear power.

etchalon• 4 years ago

We can offset the efforts of other countries.

cm2187• 4 years ago

Not by much https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_di...

stjohnswarts10• 4 years ago

That's never gonna work. If we figure out how to get to net zero electricity then we have to put pressure on other countries to do the same and show them how or it won't happen. It's possible China will surpass us in 10 or 20 years though and make that irrelevant.

throwaway57522• 4 years ago

The US can reduce its own greenhouse gas emissions, which are substantial. Then it can develop and sell renewable generation technology to the rest of the world. The US has extraordinary scientific, engineering, and manufacturing talent and can do it.

uejfiweun2• 4 years ago

I'd certainly love to believe this, but it has most definitely not materialized yet. I'm not sure that self-inflicting economic pain in order to incentivize development of alternative fuels is a good strategy.

polski-g• 4 years ago

It could declare war and destroy them and then mandate whatever it wants in the peace deal.

vkou2• 4 years ago

Simple. Tax carbon and tariff countries that don't.

If you want to be really self-serving and hypocritical about this sort of thing, you can even skip out on doing the first part, and jump straight to the second.

epistasis10• 4 years ago

The US taking action puts international pressure on other nations to also take action.

If the US ignored it and does not take action, other countries are less likely to take action, because the U.S. is generally a leader on these things.

It's kind of like asking "If the US stops pooping in the pool, what's to stop another kid from pooping in the pool?" Well those other kids are a hell of a lot more likely to poop in the pool if they see an international leader doing it.

Also, by leading the way and showing how decerbonization is not only cheaper, but also healthier, other countries will be more likely to try to save money similarly.

Most places that are installing coal these days are doing it because of local corruption. It's a lot easier to grift off a huge project than it is off of small distributed energy. Seeing that the US is moving away from coal will mean that corrupt local officials will have less excuse to pick outdated technology that lets them get bribed.

mlindner15• 4 years ago

The US has been trending downward in emissions for some time now without the federal government having to mandate anything. Texas of all places is one of the fastest growing locations in the country for wind energy.

uejfiweun2• 4 years ago

This really doesn't seem like a very strong argument to me. How does the US undertaking an expensive effort to use less efficient energy sources in the name of the climate put any pressure on other countries? I don't think our being "generally a leader" is much of an incentive for China or India to voluntarily spend trillions to completely change their energy strategy.

asdff• 4 years ago

This is the same U.S. government that got the entire earth to adopt their drug scheduling policies and to buy all oil with their dollar, keep in mind. This country is capable of exerting immense diplomatic pressure.

stjohnswarts10• 4 years ago

It has to start somewhere, and we are the richest country in the world currently.

lven• 4 years ago

Perhaps this is good to change things up and see what other solutions are possible to address climate change. EPA does not have the will of the people or Congress, which detracts from its powers and potential impact. EPA may not be geared to address climate change or large energy-economy problems - just look at the current situation - whatever they are doing is not working. They are good at pollution mitigation and rule making. Climate change solutions may not be helped by rules or EPA type measures. Instead they require environments amenable to systematic energy transition: low on regulation, low on entry barriers to innovation, low on rules and policies, financially punishing to old solutions. Climate action is techno-economic challenge the EPA might not be suited for.

cpurdy• 4 years ago

Thank you comrade for your wise words.

polotics• 4 years ago

limiting CO2 is not an "old" solution. it was basically never tried. CO2 by my estimate, will limit itself through human population culling.

spencerflem2• 4 years ago

This is so outrageously wrong. Currently, by far the most cost effective way to remove CO2 is to not create it in the first place. Congress has tried to allocate funding towards all sorts of measures and they are consistently blocked by the GOP. This ruling is both legally unsound and completely disastrous.

WalterBright7• 4 years ago

CO2 emission cannot be eliminated. After all, you and I exhale CO2.

The solution is to tax it.

zackees2• 4 years ago

The most cost effective way is to remove CO2 would be to allow nuclear generators to be built.

The free market would do the rest to kill off the petroleum industry.

WalterBright7• 4 years ago

Biden's climate change agenda has actually increased CO2 emissions. The thing is, natural gas has twice the energy in it per C atom than coal does. But Biden's regulations have targeted ng, which means that more filthy coal gets burned instead.

The answer is not targeting coal or ng. It's targeting the quantity of C emitted into the air. The very best way to do this is to tax the C in fuels that get burnt.

Then it is not necessary to have all sorts of regulations about what can be burned, etc. Just tax the C. The market will then sort it out.

duped• 4 years ago

Carbon taxes/credits are a great and practical idea that is politically dead in the womb.

vkou2• 4 years ago

It's 'politically dead' because the fossil fuel industry owns the entire republican party, and a good chunk of the democratic one.

epistasis10• 4 years ago

I used to be a huge fan of carbon taxes, but I think for them to be effective they would have needed to be adopted back in the 90s or early 2000s.

The speed at which the market adapts to small price changes is not fast enough. Additionally, we need to take quick action in ways that have very different costs for different industries.

For example, steel and concrete have large process emissions, and are industries with extremely low margins, high capital costs, and long capital lifetimes. Decarbonization of these industries is unlikely to happen even with high carbon taxes of $200/ton, because not only is the successor tech not yet understood, there's no guarantee that an investment in a potential carbon-less concrete will have a market.

A much better approach is to guarantee the market, at any price, but let it be a competitive market for that carbon-free steel or carbon-free concrete. E.g. a small number of customers that band together and state that they will only buy carbon-free concrete for construction, that needs X million tons in the next 5 years. This will allow entrepeneurs to raise money, because they have a guaranteed market where they only compete with the new tech, rather than having to compete with the general market plus a price. Let those initial businesses get going, iterate, and drive down costs.

Carbon taxes are great if you view the economy as a series of interacting spherical cows, which is how economists are the macro level must envision it in order to get their models to work.

We, as entrepreneurs, can start to de-spherify the cows and see where the models fail, and reality must be substituted.

qball• 4 years ago

Most voters recognize that carbon taxes are universally a bad deal.

For the low-income people, they mean prices for energy and transportation go up for no directly realizable benefit. Sure, we can say "you'll get a rebate at the end of the year", but that doesn't help when that extra 50 bucks out of pocket means a choice between air conditioning and getting to work on time.

For the middle-income people, they mean industry leaves for countries that don't have carbon taxes. They realize that free trade and (an intentional?) failure to levy carbon taxes on goods produced out of the country mean that all the law does is make domestic manufacturing companies less competitive, and what's worse, the countries that have no environmental production use inefficient processes to produce goods thus increasing emissions beyond what they would have been otherwise.

A tax on imported goods made with dirty industrial processes would solve both of those problems, but doing that would also impact the income brackets currently making money hand over fist in the current regulatory climate- so it won't be done.

The reasoning for "we need to collectively drop our standard of living" needs to be seen to impact everyone for it to have a chance of being accepted as valid and right now it really, really isn't.

rpmisms• 4 years ago

Yes, they essentially nuked Chevron deference through this decision, an extremely pro-voter and pro-transparency move.

Good.

Edit: I'm contextualizing this opinion through a legal lens, pointing to what it really does. From now on, Congress will have to pass laws (e.g. Do Their Jobs) to pass environmental legislation, instead of relying on the bureaucratic executive branch.

Also expressing that this is good, which is a personal opinion, but I think I'm providing value here.

spaced-out2• 4 years ago

Great for the voters living today, sure. Unfortunately the climate isn't going to wait for us to work through our political issues.

zackees2• 4 years ago

If it was really about saving the planet then Nuclear would have been allowed to replace fossil fuel.

guelo4• 4 years ago

There is no transparency here. The court elevated the extremely vague made up "major-questions doctrine" which essentially says that the court gets to decide if a regulatory agency's actions are "major" enough that congress has to act. It's the opposite of clarity. There's no principle besides whether the right-wing judge thinks something is major or not.

stjohnswarts10• 4 years ago

It's a loop hole so they can weasel their way out of saying they're not being an activist court when actually they are being activist.

woodruffw11• 4 years ago

Something I don't understand about this interpretation: the decision concerns an interpretation of the Clean Air Act, a law passed by Congress. It's a 60 year old act, sure, but it's an act nonetheless (and one that empowers these kinds of statutory interpretations by the executive branch).

Where is the buck being passed, precisely? To me this reads more as a cynical prediction by SCOTUS (that Congress will continue to deadlock, effectively granting victory-by-default to conservative causes). And they probably won't be wrong in that prediction, if the last decade serves as evidence.

dragonwriter• 4 years ago

I'm contextualizing this opinion through a legal lens, pointing to what it really does. From now on, Congress will have to pass laws (e.g. Do Their Jobs) to pass environmental legislation

No, it doesn't mean that. The Major Question doctrine only even comes into play on its own terms if (1) Congress has, in fact, passed a law, and (2) the matter addressed by the law is entirely withing Congress Constitutional power, and (3) an executive agency is acting entirely in accord with the law passed by Congress.

mlindner15• 4 years ago

People need to not be jumping to conclusions based on the article title and actually look at the details of the case in question and the history of the case. You need to look at the reasoning used, not whether you personally like the ultimate decision or not.

Because this bill was stayed by Supreme Court, removed by Trump, and then replaced by a new interpretation put in place by the Trump EPA, this interpretation in question has basically never been in place in the some 12 years since it was passed.

Wikipedia has a good summary of the events leading up to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_v._EPA

The case centers on language of Section 7411(d) of Title 42 of the United States Code[2] authorizing the EPA to regulate emissions from existing power plants, which when amended and signed into law in 1990 mistakenly included contradictory language from both the House and Senate's version of the bill that never was reconciled, leaving the interpretation to the EPA.
The suit stems from a 2015 Obama administration EPA rule, the Clean Power Plan, based on a statutory interpretation of section § 7411(d) towards meeting the Paris Agreement in carbon dioxide emissions reductions. The Clean Power Plan was challenged by several states and coal industry companies, and stayed by order of the Supreme Court. With the Trump administration, the EPA repealed the Clean Power Plan in favor of the less-aggressive Affordable Clean Power rule in 2019 based on a different interpretation of § 7411(d), and the case against the Clean Power Plan rendered moot. Several other states and health and environmental groups challenged this new rule, and the District of Columbia Circuit Court ruled in January 2021 that the Affordable Clean Power rule was arbitrary and capricious and misinterpreted § 7411(d), vacating this new rule.
Several of the states that first challenged the Clean Power Plan as well as coal industry-related companies challenged the D.C. Circuit's ruling on their analysis of the § 7411(d) and the EPA's authority granted by it, concerned that the Circuit's ruling would give the EPA far broader powers on emissions regulation. West Virginia v. EPA represents a consolidation of four petitions that the Supreme Court certified to review the D.C. Circuit's decision.
The court issued its 6-3 opinion on June 30, 2022, ruling that regulation of power plant emissions on a national scale fell within the major questions doctrine, and within that, Congress did not grant the EPA authority to regulate emissions based on generation shifting mechanisms, which would have invalidated the Clean Power Plan. The EPA may still continue to regulate emissions through emissions reduction technologies.

And as for the meaning of that "major questions doctrine".

The major questions doctrine is a rough analogue to the nondelegation doctrine, where the Supreme Court has held in recent years that in order for them to do so, Congress must have clearly authorized agencies to regulate issues of national significance.[14] When Congress fails to comply with this clear statement rule, the courts infer that Congress did not intend to empower the agency.

I'm not clear exactly how to interpret this personally.

guelo4• 4 years ago

This radical activist court is going to continue delivering major right-wing victories for the foreseeable future and there's absolutely nothing that can be done to stop them. Every right-wing dream will become reality. I'm having a hard time envisioning what this country will look like in say 10 years. The America as it was known in the 20th century certainly won't exist.

tablespoon4• 4 years ago

I think you should move to Canada. It's implemented liberal policies the US Democrats can only dream of, and it's northerly location will be advantageous as climate change progresses.

guelo4• 4 years ago

Typical vindictive gloating right wing response, basically "it's my country if you don't like it get out". In a way it's true since an aggressive right wing faction has captured the least democratic institution for a generation. Democracy is dead. But what happens when half the country can't affect change for decades no matter how large their electoral victories? A balance has been lost, it feels dangerous to me.

UkrainianJew2• 4 years ago

Yep, the cleanest country on the planet, where the biggest share of the GDP is flipping the real estate to the Chinese capital, proudly made with no environmental roadblocks in sight. Your kids will never afford a house, but the liberal policies and guilt-tripping in schools will make sure they won't want it in the first place.

66fm472tjy7• 4 years ago

and there's absolutely nothing that can be done to stop them

Congress could pass laws saying that the EPA can regulate greenhouse gas emissions, that states cannot forbid abortions, etc.

If you think that these rulings are not plausible interpretations of the law, Congress can even define the size of the court[0]. They could pack the court with judges who will interpret the law in their favor.

It is my understanding that the Democratic Party that holds the majority in both chambers claims to be in favor of these policies, so why aren't they taking action?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_Act_of_1869

diordiderot3• 4 years ago

It's difficult when the balance of power is skewed so heavily to the right.

CA senator represents ~10000000

WY senator represents ~200000

taylodl3• 4 years ago

Senate rules. Having a simple majority in the Senate doesn't mean you can ram-rod through your agenda. You need 60 votes for legislation to reach the floor for and up and down vote. The Democrats theoretically have 51 (including Kamala!), and a couple of them haven't been too reliable. So no, the Democrats can't do "anything they want."

They could end the filibuster - but that would likely backfire. End the filibuster now right before Summer recess and the Fall election cycle where not much gets done? Probably not a wise move, especially if the Republicans regain control of the senate and now you've just handed them the reigns of unbridled power. Probably not a good move. That's why the filibuster stays.

Our problem really isn't so much that our Congress is deadlocked. Heck, I argue that deadlock is actually a preferable state. Otherwise these bozos would be sowing chaos on a daily basis. The game that's changed is using procedural rules to steal supreme court justice nominations from one president and giving them to another. Trump seized that opportunity and to maximize his legacy and influence chose the youngest and most controversial judges he could get through the nominations.

I know many liberals who refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I tried to explain to them, to no avail, what would happen with regards to the Supreme Court should Trump win. I was pooh-poohed. Repeatedly told I was over-sensationalizing things. I've since received apologies from many of them but who cares? The damage has been done and will continue for much of the remainder of our lives.

There is a way out of this mess, but right now America is too polarized for that solution to be viable. Supreme Court justices can be impeached and removed from the bench - it's even been done before. But you need 2/3 of the Senate onboard to do it. I don't realistically see that happening any time for the next 20 years, if ever, and by then the damage wrought will be so severe that I'm afraid America will be unrecognizable.

Bottom line - America was already in decline. This Supreme Court is just going to accelerate that decline. If anything they might jolt Democrats out of their complacency and turning their noses up at any candidate they don't think is absolutely perfect. Who knows? Maybe something good will come out of this after all.

stjohnswarts10• 4 years ago

Well only if Congress and voters won't do anything. Y'all have to forget about the Supreme Court, they're a lost cause now. Go vote or watch half the country turn into the next Sahara desert in the West. It's in our hands now, SCOTUS is a useless vestigial government branch now as far as getting anything done.

ARandomerDude• 4 years ago

From the Supreme Court's majority opinion:

a decision of such magnitude and consequence rests with Congress itself, or an agency acting pursuant to a clear delegation from that representative body.

Honestly it's hard to see how that position is unreasonable. If Congress wants the EPA to have this power, let them vote to give it. If Congress does not want the EPA to have this power, then the EPA shouldn't attempt to exercise power they don't have. There's really no other solution if we're going to have a representative government.

epistasis10• 4 years ago

Congress did vote for EPA to have this power. The Supreme Court decided that they didn't like where that power led, and is now restricting the types of laws that Congress can make.

mlindner15• 4 years ago

How do you know what Congress was thinking? You can't read the mind of Congress.

Also, the Supreme Court has always restricted the types of laws that Congress can pass, based on what the Constitution says. However this doesn't involve Constitutionality. Congress can absolutely pass a law giving this exact power to the EPA and the Supreme Court couldn't touch it.

rayiner6• 4 years ago

Congress voted in 1970 for the EPA to have the power to address climate change by controlling the nationwide mix of power generators? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_(United_States)

I think if you asked any of the folks in 1970 whether that was the intent of the Clean Air Act they’d be surprised.

woodruffw11• 4 years ago

If Congress wants the EPA to have this power, let them vote to give it

That is precisely what they did. It was called the Clean Air Act, and Congress passed it in 1963.

SCOTUS's reasoning here is hinky, to use an official legal term: it's clear that Congress has empowered the EPA here, but that SCOTUS finds it easier to claim that they never truly did rather than that they oughtn't to have.

mlindner15• 4 years ago

That is precisely what they did. It was called the Clean Air Act, and Congress passed it in 1963.

Given that the danger of CO2 was completely unknown in 1963 and green energy technologies almost didn't exist. I'm not sure how you can claim that.

_uy6i2• 4 years ago

I don’t think an originalist would take this view. To use hyperbole, I don’t think anyone intended the bill to empower the epa to shut down the energy industry.

hackeraccount• 4 years ago

Why did congress consider (and then not pass) a bill that would have done all the things (such as cap and trade) that the EPA then went on to do?

Clearly Congress itself thought there was a law needed - that the EPA didn't have the authority to do what it went on to try and do.

d--b• 4 years ago

The dissenting justices argue that congress already voted to give EPA the mandate to address air pollution. The majority opinion is that “climate change” is a different issue than “air pollution”.

For my part, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that CO2 emissions aren’t covered by the clean air act. And since the decision clearly follows the conservative agenda, it’s hard to not see it as a politically-driven decision.

mlindner15• 4 years ago

Firstly, I agree global warming is happening, and that it's caused by humans, and that we should be working to stop it.

However, CO2 emissions are not pollutants in the normal sense of the term. They do not directly harm human health by their existence in the environment.

dyslexit• 4 years ago

Unfortunately for the rest of the world climate change doesn't wait to see what a Congress hamstrung by one political party that denies its very existence is going to do. That change has no political reality of coming from that branch, neither now not in any reasonable future that's going to matter.

patrick451• 4 years ago

Indeed. Un-elected regulatory agencies arrogating astronomic levels of power is far bigger danger than CO2 in the atmosphere.

rayiner6• 4 years ago

This decision simply told the EPA that it needs specific authorization to engage in a sweeping restructuring of the country’s power generation mix to address climate change, and can’t rely on its existing authority to tell coal plants to install particulate scrubbers.

This is a huge problem warranting an apoplectic reaction because everyone knows Congress won’t do that. In fact, voters are about to hand Congress back over to the GOP because they’re mad about paying $5/gallon for gas. The vast majority of Americans want to address climate change, but won’t pay even $10/month extra on their electric bill to do so: https://www.cato.org/blog/68-americans-wouldnt-pay-10-month-.... Having Congress vote to raise everyone’s energy costs is a total non-starter.

The unstated subtext to all this is that, to address climate change, we need to bypass democracy and impose sweeping changes through unelected bureaucrats and boring administrative proceedings nobody pays attention to. And it’s quite revealing who thinks that’s a good idea and who thinks it’s a bad idea.

pavlov2• 4 years ago

You use “sweeping” twice to describe EPA’s rules, which makes them sound unreasonable and over-reaching.

Yet the only example you give is requiring coal plants to install particulate scrubbers, which… sounds perfectly reasonable coming from an agency tasked to reduce air pollution?

mlindner15• 4 years ago

You use “sweeping” twice to describe EPA’s rules, which makes them sound unreasonable and over-reaching.

This is what the alternative interpretation would allow.

The plan will require individual states to meet specific standards with respect to reduction of carbon dioxide emissions.[22] States are free to reduce emissions by various means, and must submit emissions reductions plans by September 2016, or, with an extension approval, by September 2018.[23] If a state has not submitted a plan by then, the EPA will impose its own plan on that state.[23]

rayiner6• 4 years ago

Sorry, the sentence is ambiguous. That’s exactly what the EPA can do. What I meant to say is the EPA can’t use its authority to tell coal plants to install particulate scrubbers, which it has, to go and tell the whole industry to stop using coal.

woodruffw11• 4 years ago

The unstated subtext to all this is that, to address climate change, we need to bypass democracy and impose sweeping changes through unelected bureaucrats and boring administrative proceedings nobody pays attention to.

People pay attention to SCOTUS, but you've otherwise described them to a T. SCOTUS is not elected; the EPA, in contrast, is empowered through an Act of Congress. The people you've described as "unelected bureaucrats" are a mostly well-educated civil service, one you've presented no evidence against to warrant their malignment.

UkrainianJew2• 4 years ago

Unpopular opinion: any reasonable policies and restrictions are always compromises between the 2 polar opposite extremes. For example, killing all humans on Earth would completely stop climate change, but the price is unreasonably high. As the opposite extreme, reducing food waste hardly has any disadvantages, but is not sufficient on its own to stop the warming.

Compromises are found iteratively - moving the lever too far creates pressure on the opposing side, and the regulation changes back.

Globalization eliminated the feedback loop. Each time the West hardens environmental standards, a some "dirty" production just moves to less developed countries, along with the jobs, knowledge and culture for achieving things. That CO2 is still emitted overseas, but we conveniently turn a blind eye to it, arguing whether we should have shorter showers or ban plastic straws. Now it's biting us hard, since it turned out those countries have much less political stability, so as the shit finally hit the fan, we suddenly have a shortage of everything.

Maybe, just maybe, having the emissions managed on the state level will let different states explore different potential trade-offs between being green and being dysfunctional, and we can hopefully find a better compromise that takes a more complete picture into consideration.

redisman2• 4 years ago

Letting states choose how they hit their CO2 allotment is totally fine as long as there is a universal per capita CO2 goal for the whole country. If there is no cap then self serving states will simply emit as much as is maximally profitable

woodruffw11• 4 years ago

Unpopular opinion: any reasonable policies and restrictions are always compromises between the 2 polar opposite extremes.

King Solomon, is that you[1]?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgement_of_Solomon

jdpigeon• 4 years ago

That's an interesting argument. My counter for globalization is that it leads to developed countries taking the lead in policy decisions for other countries around the world. One example is the US controlled substances act being copied nearly identically around the world. It's possible that if the US hadn't passed that law, most countries would have had legal pot throughout the 20th century.

I'm afraid that the supreme court stifling the ability of the US to legislate against carbon emissions is going to slow down the entire world who has been looking to the US as an example on what to do.

jimmygrapes• 4 years ago

Since this keeps popping up on the front page and nobody seems to understand, here is the list of criteria air pollutants: https://www.epa.gov/criteria-air-pollutants/naaqs-table

As noted in the above link, Congress from time to time amends the Act to update the list, which was last done in 1990. That's all it takes: an amendment to the Act, passed by Congress. They can and have done this before, and yes, even with "climate deniers" signing off on it. The sole reason it hasn't been amended since then is because of the increased practice of doing omnibus bills and each group adding unreasonable expenditures and pet projects to otherwise uncontroversial legislation. How that gets stopped I have no idea, since the only legislators I am aware of who oppose that sort of thing get lambasted by hyper partisan media and the voters who gobble up that propaganda.

oliwarner2• 4 years ago

It's a blow to the whole planet —we're all stuck here— but I've got to wonder how much more of these anti-federal decisions the Union can take.

It's not just bad that another state might harm the same environment you're trying your hardest to protect, they might start to outcompete methods of doing things cleaner, costing local jobs, green mindshare and votes.

A progressive succession seems more likely every day.

s1artibartfast2• 4 years ago

And based on precedent, a conservative federal government could roll into succession states, slaughter resistance, and assert military control.

The Supreme Court’s Latest Decision Is a Blow to Stopping Climate Change

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