Biden highway climate rule struck down by Texas judge: ‘Unauthorized’
A U.S. judge ruled against the Biden administration in a decision about a highway climate rule on Wednesday.
The rule was issued by the Department of Transportation (DOT)’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) in December 2023. It requires states to measure and report the greenhouse gas emissions from any vehicles using the U.S. highway system.
The rule also asked states to establish declining carbon dioxide targets, and to report back about progress on those goals. Texas sued the DOT in response.
U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, a Trump appointee, ruled in favor of Texas and wrote on Wednesday that “the rule was unauthorized.”
While issuing the rule three months ago, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that it “will provide states with a clear and consistent framework to track carbon pollution and the flexibility to set their own climate targets.”
In a December statement, the office of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued that the DOT “does not have the statutory authority to institute such a rule, and the mandate violates the Administrative Procedure Act.”
“Further, the rule is arbitrary and capricious and violates the Spending Clause by impermissibly restricting the use of federal funds by requiring TxDOT to implement the greenhouse gas measure.”
Texas is also suing the Biden administration over a climate-related reason in a separate lawsuit. Last week, a group of 16 Republican states filed a lawsuit against the Department of Energy (DOE)’s pause of major liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal projects.
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“Biden’s unilateral decree disregards statutory mandates, flouts the legal process, upends the oil and gas industry, disrupts the Texas economy, and subverts our constitutional structure,” Paxton said on Mar. 21.
A huge part of the problem is that Congress, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, has unconstitutionally delegated rule-making — that is, delegated the power to legislate (as well as the president’s veto power and the courts’ judicial power) — to Executive branch administrative agencies. If the Supreme Court were to revisit the delegation doctrine and hold it unconstitutional, Congress would have to approve legislation and send it to the President for signature or veto, rather than, as currently is done, allow unelected bureaucrats to exercise the powers of the Legislature, Executive, and Judicial branches of government. We need to put a stop to this over reach and elect reps to put a stop to this.