Last weekend, many Americans — mostly progressives, surely — staged “No Kings” protests against what progressivism has done much to produce: today’s rampant presidency. Their chief concerns were domestic — unilateral spending cuts, deportations, etc. A week is, however, forever in today’s politics. Today, progressives, those occasional constitutionalists, are fretting about uninhibited presidential warmaking.
On Tuesday, Barack Obama descended from Olympus in his usual lecture mode, solemnly sharing his worries about Washington tendencies “consistent with autocracies.” Obama is and was a situational Madisonian. He rewrote immigration law after repeatedly and correctly insisting he had no legitimate power to do so. And he intervened in Libya’s civil war by waging war there for almost eight months without seeking congressional authorization or complying with the law (the War Powers Resolution).
Obama argued, through his lawyers, that the thousands of airstrikes that killed thousands did not constitute “hostilities.” Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith termed Obama “a matchless war-powers unilateralist.”
Andrew Stuttaford, as usual, is correct:
One of the characteristic failings of central planners is an inability to, so to speak, connect the dots. As they draw up their directives, they rarely succeed in thinking through how putting them into practice will work in the real world. They also tend be reluctant to accept the need to set priorities, or, for that matter, accept trade-offs.
Jon Miltimore applauds a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court to strip environmentalists of a dangerous weapon. Two slices:
The high court’s decision not only revived a major energy project but also corrected a troubling trend: the misuse of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to obstruct economic development through ever-expanding regulatory demands.
The legal battle was years in the making. In 2021, the US Surface Transportation Board (STB) approved the railway, which would serve an area accounting for 85 percent of Utah’s oil and gas production. But in 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia blocked the project, ruling that its environmental impact statement (EIS) was insufficient. “It is clear that the Board failed to adequately consider the Rail Policies and ‘articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action,’” the court wrote.
The Seven County Infrastructure Coalition—a group of eastern Utah counties backing the railway—vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, environmental activists hailed the ruling, calling the project “a financial boondoggle and a climate bomb.”
Their celebration, however, was short-lived.
Last month, in Seven County Infrastructure Coalition et al v. Eagle County, Colorado, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the DC appeals court in a ruling that will rein in judicial overreach under NEPA—a law that environmental groups and judicial activists have used not as a constitutional tool for environmental safeguards, but as a means to delay or derail infrastructure and energy projects altogether.
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Environmental groups that wrongly view fossil fuels as inherently harmful may bristle at Sotomayor’s decision. But the Court rightly held that NEPA was never intended to serve as “a substantive roadblock” to economic development. Yet that’s exactly what NEPA became, as environmental groups turned to the courts to halt projects they opposed under the guise of judicial review.
For years, some federal courts played along, taking “an aggressive role in policing agency compliance” and effectively paralyzing executive agencies. The Court’s majority offered a reset, laying out a more “straightforward” framework for NEPA cases going forward.
Christopher Snowdon lays out the logic of “bootlegging Baptists.”
Sergio Martínez understands the economic damage done by protectionism.
When factoring in how aggressive deportations reduce tax revenue and economic activity, the bill’s immigration provisions are nearly $1 trillion more than the CBO estimates, according to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute.
The rising cost of immigration enforcement will continue unless Congress implements suitable legislative measures, he tells Reason. “Congress effectively has given up on policing what the agencies are spending their money on.” With Congress neglecting its fiscal duties, the Trump administration is spending “on what they want to spend it on, and really the only check is the internal politics within the administration.”
Bob Graboyes touchingly remembers his late wife, Alanna.
