The Wall Street Journal, predictably outraged that the Environmental Protection Agency has actually used its authority to regulate carbon emissions, asserts that the agency's actions are somehow inconsistent with "democratic consent." The obvious problem here is that Congress has, for decades, been delegating tough environmental choices to the EPA. Setting broad goals of environmental protection and letting the executive branch sort out the details is pretty much how environmental policy operates. Since this seems to be how Congress wants it, it's hard to claim it's "undemocratic." (Of course, the real issue here is that this change to the status quo disempowers the undemocratic minority in the Senate that the Journal would prefer be allowed to endlessly obstruct attempts by majorities to actually deal with climate change.) None of this is to say that new EPA regulations are the ideal way of addressing climate change -- they probably aren't. And if, as Brad Plumer hopes, the EPA's actions encourage Congress to take responsibility for a change while giving some leverage to people who actually care about global warming, this will probably be a good thing. But to claim that executive policy-making done with the ongoing consent of Congress is "undemocratic" at this late date is unserious. --Scott Lemieux
