Congressional witness laughs in Lauren Boebert’s face for her ignorance

Michael Regan, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), laughed in the face of Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) yesterday when she questioned him during a House Oversight Committee. Boebert incorrectly claimed that a recent Supreme Court decision declared all EPA rules as “unconstitutional” — and Regan laughed at Boebert’s ignorant questions. Later, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) clarified what the court’s ruling actually says.

“Your rogue bureaucrats that have enacted these unconstitutional regulations. Are you going to repeal them? Are you going to continue to implement them, or are you going to stop altogether, since it’s been overturned?” Boebert asked the EPA head.

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Regan asked, “Do you understand the ruling?”

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Boebert replied, “Do you understand the ruling of the Supreme Court?”

“I do. I do,” Regan answered. “So your question is ill-formed.” He added, “No, we’re not going to stop—”

Boebert interrupted, “So you’re going to unconstitutionally continue with these rulemakings in the EPA?”

Regan answered, “We’re going to adhere to the Supreme Court and continue to do our work in accordance to the Supreme Court.”

Boebert asked again, “So which ones are you going to repeal?”

Regan explained, “The Supreme Court didn’t tell us to repeal anything.”

Boebert incorrectly asserted, “They have been deemed unconstitutional.”

Regan said, “Noooooo.”

Boebert said, “Indeed they have.” At which point, Regan laughed at her.

The ruling to which Bobert referred, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, determined that courts should ultimately determine the meaning of any ambiguous rulemaking made by government agencies. While the ruling certainly sets up the likelihood that businesses will challenge EPA rules, the ruling didn’t declare all EPA rules as “unconstitutional.”

Later in the hearing, Rep. Goldman said, “I just want to clarify a few things for my colleague from Colorado,” and told Regan, “The Loper Bright ruling, as you know, said that the courts should not defer to agency rule-making if a statute is ambiguous, and instead the courts get to determine … what the statute means. Is that your understanding as well?”

Regan replied, “Absolutely.”

Goldman added, “So that would not require any regulations to be reversed or overturned. Correct?”

“Correct,” Regan answered.

Yikes… Boebert just walked into a fact check by Goldman pic.twitter.com/WSPwSbyyJE

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 10, 2024

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