> Congress can still pass a law empowering EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
Congress gave the EPA broad discretion that it could have revoked -- using your argument -- at any moment. This issue has been bouncing around for over a decade, and Congress has systematically declined to do so.
I think the argument is that the EPA considered itself to have broad discretion and congress was silent on the matter, and more generally do the executive functions have whatever discretion they assume to have unless congress specifically limits them? Or rather, do they have only the permit that congress gives them?
That's a horrible argument. The Executive branch should never had default allow permissions for anything. The amount of mental gymnastic many of our current regulator bodies have used to claim more authority is already obscene.
Congress gave the EPA broad discretion that it could have revoked -- using your argument -- at any moment. This issue has been bouncing around for over a decade, and Congress has systematically declined to do so.