Don’t be fooled by the name, the Inflation Reduction Act marks a turning point in our fight against climate change, or so Democrats assure us. Whether or not such lofty expectations pan out, the Democratic signatories of the act inadvertently vindicate the Supreme Court they now deride as illegitimate.
Democrats’ climate ambitions crumbled in June when the Supreme Court invalidated the revival of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, an EPA mandate requiring fossil fuel companies either to reduce production or subsidize renewables. In West Virginia v. EPA, the high court determined the agency’s existing statutory authority could not justify such a mandate. Writing for a six-justice majority, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that agencies could not exercise “unheralded” and expansive regulatory powers over society unless Congress had clearly delegated to them that authority. After all, it is fundamental to democratic governance that the people make major policy decisions, not bureaucrats who are unfamiliar and unaccountable to voters.
To say Democrats were livid with this application of judicial review is an understatement. The “MAGA, regressive, extremist Supreme Court will cause more needless deaths,” exploded Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi further condemned the “radical, pro-pollution Justices” for “bow[ing] to the dirty energy special interests who seek to poison the air our children breathe.”
Democrats’ vitriol notwithstanding, actions speak louder than words. When the high court ordered that reduction of carbon emissions would require the people’s elected representatives to enact new legislation, Democrats in Congress heeded the command.
On Aug. 16, after a monthslong slog to cobble together the votes, President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law. With hundreds of billions in subsidies and tax credits for green energy, the act intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the country. Lauded as the single “boldest climate package in U.S. history,” the act has turned Democrats’ wrathful despondency following West Virginia into pure elation, with Pelosi going so far as to praise the legislation for saving the earth.
Regardless of whether its climate provisions work as intended, the act embodies a feat of constitutional lawmaking. Rather than stretch the power of Washington bureaucrats to revolutionize society, Democrats enacted a new law geared toward the same end. For better or worse, voters will hold them responsible at the ballot box in November.
Although the Biden administration continues its regulatory assault by way of bureaucratic fiat, the act hearkens back to the democratic and accountable lawmaking envisioned by our founders. In that vein, at least, it warrants conservatives’ praise.
Charles Brandt is a J.D. candidate at the George Washington University Law School.
