SOURCE: HOTAIR.COM
http://hotair.com/archives/2016/06/23/federal-judge-has-some-bad-news-for-the-interior-department-on-fracking/by Jazz Shaw
Liberal opponents of hydraulic fracture, better known as fracking, continue to attempt to make this a wedge issue in the upcoming election. So firmly are they fixated on the idea that this highly successful technology is the great evil of our time that the Democrats are considering making a ban on fracking part of their platform at the convention this year. Their efforts are becoming increasingly futile however, and these green warriors suffered another blow this week in court. The Department of the Interior attempted to impose a fracking ban on federal lands a couple of years back, but now a federal judge has ruled that Interior has no say in the matter and needs to stay in their own lane. (Washington Times)
Judge Scott Skavdahl of the District Court of Wyoming already had put a hold on the regulations last year, and in a decision released late Tuesday, he ruled that Congress did not give Interior the power to regulate hydraulic fracturing, indeed it had expressly withheld that power with some narrow exceptions.
“Congress has not delegated to the Department of Interior the authority to regulate hydraulic fracturing,” Judge Skavdahl wrote in deciding a lawsuit brought by industry groups and a number of Western states. The “effort to do so through the Fracking Rule is in excess of its statutory authority and contrary to law.”
This was a fairly crazy claim to begin with. The Department of the Interior had been attempting to argue that their oversight of public lands gave them the authority to impose such a ban in the interest of the public good, but the judge has dismissed that claim as a vast overreach of their power. (It’s worth noting that Judge Skavdahl is an Obama appointee, by the way.)
The judge went on to specify that it’s Congress, not the executive branch, which holds such broad authority, and the fact that the legislative branch has failed to do something that the White House wants does not automatically give them the right to usurp those powers.
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