The Executive Veto
There seem to be quite a few people who blame President Bush for the recent escalation in oil prices. Laying aside the eco-fascists who want to blame Bush for every bad thing that happens, including Hurricane Katrina, the fact is that Presidents in general and Bush in particular have very little power to affect the economy. This is actually a good thing. Government involvement is almost always counterproductive. As I stated in Andrew Sullivan: SUV owners support terror, some of our energy woes are attributable to Congress enacting the eco-fascist agenda. The laws that created the current regulatory nightmare are already on the books and the agencies created to carry out the laws already exist – the time for the President to veto those laws is long past. Or is it?
There is an option open to any President willing to battle an out-of-control Congress but it will take substantial political will and the right timing. The option is impoundment. In the case of energy regulations, what a President could do is impound funds allocated to the EPA, DOE, and Interior. The impoundment would be a limited to selected regulatory components of the given agencies - the ones most beloved by the eco-fascists and other garden variety Luddites
Impounding funds would be a direct challenge to Congress, which outlawed the practice in 1974 at a time when the sitting President (Nixon) was very weak. The President would need to tie the action to an energy emergency such as what we’re currently experiencing with the interruption of oil production/refining along the Gulf coast. Decisive action by the President would be more likely to garner public support and the Supreme Court would have an added political incentive to side with the President if, as is likely, his actions were challenged by members of Congress.
Impoundment acts like a veto. In effect, the President refuses to execute certain laws of Congress. Here’s what the Constitution has to say in the first clause of Article II:
The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States.
Sweet and to the point. (Most constitutions around the world don’t follow the U.S. example of parsimony. Generally speaking, the more verbose a constitution, the worse it is, in terms of protecting individual rights.) It has long been recognized that those exercising executive power have fairly wide discretion. For example, prosecutors at all levels of government can pretty much decide which crimes they wish to prosecute. If the County Prosecutor of, say, Marion County decided not to prosecute low-level cannabis possession cases (30 grams or less) then it would be entirely within his power to do so. In the case of the President of the U.S., there is arguably a positive requirement to exercise what I’ll call the Executive Veto in the case of certain laws. The President, upon starting a term in office must take the following oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfull execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
Again, short and sweet. The President is responsible for executing “the Office” of President - not being a rubber stamp for Congress. Moreover, the President’s duty is to the Constitution. If Congress gets it wrong, it is up to the President, exercising executive authority, to fix things.
The impoundment law is unconstitutional and some President, some time, needs to challenge it. I regret to say that Bush is not that President.