Chip Bok's Bokbluster

President Obama banned oil drilling in parts of the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. His proclamation is permanent and irreversible. The president says he derives this power from the Continental Outer Shelf Land Act.

He commanded the planet to heal and the oceans to slow their rise eight years ago. So this would seem a minor extension of his mandate.

But not everyone agrees he has the power to enforce his will on future presidents and Congresses. Here’s Kevin Williamson in National Review:

Legally speaking this is, as Professor Patrick Parenteau of Vermont Law School wryly put it, “uncharted waters.”

Awesome Beautiful Presidential Power

David Harsanyi in The Federalist agrees the president can’t have have his way with those who come after him. But he fears that future presidents may not want to overturn Obama’s will. So much the better to expand their own awesome beautiful presidential power:

So Republicans could likely overturn this diktat as they can the rest of Obama’s rickety legacy, predominately built on circumventing the law-making branch of the United States government. The problem is that Trump (and anyone else who comes along) has little reason not to adopt Obama’s unprecedented use of the executive power.