Supreme Court wages war on public sector expertise
By Timothy L. O’Brien / Bloomberg Opinion
How valuable is expertise? What’s the most efficient and effective way to tackle epic and urgent national challenges such as climate change or a pandemic? Are expertise and problem-solving related?
The Supreme Court’s conservative wing has responded to those questions in recent rulings. And its answers are so doctrinaire and divorced from reality that they will be bad for the economy, public health and, ultimately, the well-being of every American.
Last Thursday, the court, in yet another landmark decision, curtailed the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to prevent power-plants from polluting the atmosphere. The EPA is populated with scientists and other experts whose mission involves protecting people’s health and reducing environmental risks; including the most glaring existential threat of our era, climate change.
But the court’s majority doesn’t recognize any indispensable virtues in the EPA’s expertise. It believes that the EPA and other federal agencies should act sparingly — and possibly shouldn’t even exist — because they exercise powers that belong to Congress, not to unelected wonks appointed by the president.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-supreme-court-wages-war-on-public-sector-expertise/