The Environmental Protection agency finds no basis for existence in the U.S. Constitution

The Constitution lists the powers given the federal government in Article 1, Sec 8 of the Constitution. They are here summarized. The government has the power to collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce among states and with foreign nations, establish rules of naturalization and bankruptcy, coin monies and set the values thereof, punish counterfeiters, establish post offices and post roads, establish patent system, constitute courts inferior to Supreme Court, punish piracy, etc, declare war, raise armies, establish a navy, call forth militia, and have authority over lands owned by the government. This is a rough approximation, but it should be readily apparent that the only clause that could allow the existence of the EPA is the commerce clause, which reads "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes." It is almost certain, therefore, that this debate will center around the commerce clause (Amendment X prohibits the government from exercising any powers other than those listed in the constitution); it is equally certain that the debate will revolve around one word: REGULATE. That word, as we use it today, would certainly allow for the existence of an EPA-like administrative body; however, the word today is not equivalent to the meaning of the word at the time the constitution was written. In that period, regulate simply meant to keep regular or to keep well-ordered. For example, the second amendment, commonly known as promoting the right to bear arms, uses the phrase 'a well-regulated militia.' This certainly cannot mean a militia subject to some sort of administrative bureaucracy; rather, it is explained by one of the powers granted in Article 1, Section 8, "to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia. In other words, remove obstacles to the efficient functioning of the militia. With regard to commerce, Federalist No. XLII states "The powers included in the third class are those which provide for the harmony and proper intercourse among the states....to regulate commerce..." Madison goes on to say that the want of a power to regulate commerce has resulted in opportunistic taxes of coastal states upon those states forced to conduct commerce through their ports. In Federalist No. XXII, Hamilton says, "The interfering and unneighborly regulations of some States, contrary to the true spirit of the Union, have, in different instances, given just cause of umbrage and complaint to others; and it is to be feared that examples of this nature, if not restrained by a national control, would be multiplied and extended till they became not less serious sources of animosity and discord than injurious impediments to the intercourse between the different parts of the confederacy." Although the space is insufficient to reproduce entire Federalists, numbers 22 and 41-46 detail the powers given to the government and explain why these powers are both necessary and limited. Examples are tendered of other confederacies whose national government is incapable of restraining excessive taxation and impediments to commerce between the several provinces. It is clear, therefore, that the Founders did not intend this clause to allow what we would call regulation; but rather to prevent a lack of superintendence from destroying the Union. A very clear case is in the emancipation controversy, in which the policies of the southern states in claiming escaped slaves as property led to conflicts with northern abolitionists who, acting pursuant to their own state laws or regulations, sought to harbor the fugitives. The federal government, then, is authorized by the commerce clause to make regular the various laws in an attempt to prevent discord. Since the EPA does not seek to improve and make regular the commerce of the states, it does not fall under the provisions of the commerce clause and is therefore unconstitutional.