In his letter to every state governor in March 2015, Mitch
McConnell, the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, urged the state officials to
ignore the E.P.A.’s regulations that when implemented would reduce carbon
pollution from coal-fired power plants. In his letter, the senator complained
that President Obama was “allowing the E.P.A. to wrest control of a state’s
energy policy.”[1]
Were McConnell the chair of the E.U.’ s European Council rather than the U.S.’s
Senate, he would doubtlessly have pointed to the worsening “democracy deficit,”
wherein regulators in the European Commission take power away from state
legislatures. Yet, surprisingly (or many not), the majority leader did not
frame the issue in terms of federalism. Why?
The full essay is at “Fixing
Federalism Sidestepped.”
[1] Coral
Davenport, “McConnell Urges States to Help Thwart Obama’s ‘War on Coal,’” The New York Times, March 20, 2015.