"All legislative Powers herein grantedshall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
(Constitution, Article 1)
StickJockey, I agree. There is another emphasis which I also find interesting:
"All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives."
(Constitution, Article 1)
It seems to me that We the People created a very specific process for creating federal laws.
All federal laws. This process is designed with some faily high hurdles--A law has to be passed by both the Senate
and the House of Representatives,
and be signed by the President, all of whom are elected officeholders.
This process by which we have the FCC, OSHA, EPA, and other alphabet-soup agencies creating laws (which they call "regulations", but the the jail cell is just as real if you violate their "regulations"), is clearly in violation of Article I, section 1.
Yes, I can hear the screams already: "But having a power means having the ability to delegate that power." But this is clearly not the case. There's that pesky word "All" again. "All" means "all". And when the Constitution intends for a power to be delegated, it says so. The power to delegate some of the powers of the Supreme Court to inferior courts is explicitly defined. The power of the President of the United States to delegate some of his powers to cabinet officers and military officers is also discussed. No such power is given to the Congress to delegate its lawmaking power to other entities.
Which is how it should be. As defined by the Constitution, the people have the right to review the actions of their Congressmen every two years, and vote out those who pass screwy laws. How long would a Congressman continue to have his job if he voted to take millions of acres out a cultivation to preserve a species of rats? To preserve a species of flies? He would be voted out at the very next election. But the EPA can do these things with impunity, because it is not answerable to the voters.