(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) The Environmental Protection Agency, along with several other administrative agencies, blatantly defied President Trump’s executive order, effectively launching an attack on popular sovereignty.
Abraham Lincoln, in his “First Inaugural Address,” explained that, “The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people.” Accordingly, the power of the presidency is a reflection of government that Lincoln described as “of the people, by the people, [and] for the people” in the Gettysburg Address. The president’s power represents the will of the American people. The administrative state is unelected. Accordingly, the EPA refusing to carry out the will of the president is an assault on popular sovereignty.
President Trump, as reported by Fox News, issued an executive order late in his term. This order “creat[ed] a new classification of federal employee known as Schedule F. Trump designed this executive order to make the administrative state more accountable to the people’s representatives. Accordingly, “employees classified under Schedule F would have been much easier to fire and discipline.”
Trump asked federal agencies to identify employees suitable to be classified under Schedule F.
The Government Accountability Office reported that only 15 agencies “made any effort to implement Trump’s order.” The GAO also reported that “the EPA purposefully decided not to implement it to protect its employees.”
According to Fox News, “EPA officials stated that they did not have time to do the extensive work required to finalize their petition.”
In more direct terms, the EPA doesn’t have time to answer to the legitimately elected representative of the American people.
Fox News reported that the EPA “also said their employees would be upset if they learned that EPA was submitting a petition.” Whoever is running the EPA cares more about not upsetting their employees than obeying the representatives of the American people.
Or maybe, they just don’t like Trump because he demanded accountability from government bureaucrats.
