EPA says it will eliminate its scientific research arm

It's really depressing how the US system seems to have existed "on belief". Once somebody set out to damage or destroy it, away it went. Pretty much without a whimper.

As I recall, the system was set up with 3 branches of government in tension. Obviously, that was naive.

We haven’t really followed the Constitution for about 100 years now, sadly. We pay lip service to it but it’s mostly a historical curiosity at this point.

If anyone doubts this, take a moment to read the document in one sitting. It’s remarkably short. Compare what you read to the government you’ve had all your life.

If we followed the constitution the EPA wouldn’t even exist! Clearly the founders didn’t create this complicated three-branch system only to have most of the government being run by “independent agencies” exercising executive, legislative, and judicial powers.

These agencies work with delegated powers. It is completely impossible for such a limited number of people as the American Congress to be experts on everything. They need advisors and structures to help them understand the world and make the right decisions, but also to make sure that these decisions are enforced.

This may not be fully developed in the US constitution because the world was much simpler back then, but it is entirely compatible with it.

The notion of Congress “delegating powers” to administrative agencies is entirely incompatible with the constitution.

The administrative agencies do not merely “advise.” They make regulations with the force of law (legislative power), enforce those regulations (executive power), and adjudicate violations of the regulations (judicial power). That concentration of the three powers into a single entity is the very thing the Constitution goes to great lengths to avoid.

Ok, so after you burn down this system what’s the replacement? Nothing?