Constitution is specifically limiting of feds’ power

In her recently published letter to the editor, Laurel Levin writes that President Joe Biden should take executive actions that would effectively shut down the fossil fuel industry by declaring a climate “emergency.” Regardless of the merits of such a policy, Levin seems to have forgotten both our Constitution

and history.

The U.S. Constitution specifically limits the powers of the federal government with a series of checks and balances. The concerns about a chief executive abusing his power proved to be well-founded.

In the 20th century alone, numerous dictators consolidated their power by first declaring an emergency, often in countries that previously were democracies. Our country is not immune. Using World War I as a pretext, President Woodrow Wilson’s administration imprisoned thousands of Americans for exercising their First Amendment rights. In World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt interned more than 100,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry using his emergency powers. Using COVID -19 as a pretext, the Biden administration prohibited landlords from evicting tenants over delinquent rent payments. Now it is coercing private companies to fire their unvaccinated employees.

There’s no evidence to suggest any of the impacted Americans ever represented such a threat to national security to justify denying their civil liberties. COVID-19 and climate change are serious, but they do not warrant ceding power to the chief executive.

“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent,” said former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

We would be wise to heed that statement.

— Michael Hartnett, Greenbrae