“To be governed,” wrote Pierre Proudhon, “is to be watched, inspected, spied on, regulated, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, ruled, censored, by persons who have neither wisdom nor virtue.” If the French father of Anarchism seems an odd bedfellow for conservative, 21st century jurists, well, buckle up: America is in the midst of a right-wing assault on the authority and existence of administrative agencies to the detriment of most Americans.

Disdain for the administrative state starts at the top: In June, a now-too-familiar 6-3 majority of the Supreme Court made the “major questions” doctrine a major obstacle to combatting climate change. The court’s six conservative justices held that the EPA cannot require existing power plants to reduce production of electricity or subsidize increased generation by natural gas, wind or solar sources, even though the Clean Air Act gives the EPA broad regulatory power and expressly directs it to reduce global warming by regulating fossil fuel-fired power plants.

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