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B. Violation – The AFF does not reduce restrictions – instead, it clarifies acceptable
conditions under which legal immigration can occur
Court rulings can’t reduce restrictions – they only make it judicially unenforceable.
Consensus of court rulings prove an irrefutable legal distinction.
Treanor and Sperling, ‘93 (William Michael, Associate Professor of Law @ Fordham University, and
Gene B., Deputy Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, December, Prospective Overruling and
the Revival of "unconstitutional" Statutes, 93 Colum. L. Rev. 1902, Columbia Law Review)
Unlike the Supreme Court, several state courts have explicitly addressed the revival issue. The
relevant state court cases have concerned the specific issue of whether a statute that has been held
unconstitutional is revived when the invalidating decision is overturned. 42 With one exception,
they have concluded that such statutes are immediately enforceable . The most noted instance in which the revival
issue was resolved by a court involved the District of Columbia minimum wage statute pronounced unconstitutional in Adkins. After the Court reversed
Adkins in West Coast Hotel, President Roosevelt asked Attorney General Homer [*1913] Cummings for an opinion on the status of the District of Columbia's
statute. The Attorney General responded, The
decisions are practically in accord in holding that the courts have no
power to repeal or abolish a statute, and that notwithstanding a decision holding it unconstitutional
a statute continues to remain on the statute books ; and that if a statute be declared unconstitutional and the decision so
declaring it be subsequently overruled the statute will then be held valid from the date it became effective. 43 Enforcement of the statute followed without
congressional action. 44 When this enforcement was challenged, the Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in Jawish v. Morlet 45 held that
the decision in West Coast Hotel had had the effect of making the statute enforceable. The court observed that previous opinions addressing the revival issue
proceed on the principle that a
statute declared unconstitutional is void in the sense that it is inoperative or
unenforceable, but not void in the sense that it is repealed or abolished; that so long as the decision
stands the statute is dormant but not dead; and that if the decision is reversed the statute is valid
from its first effective date. 46 The court declared this precedent sound since the cases were "in accord with the
principle "that a decision of a court of appellate jurisdiction overruling a former decision is retrospective in its operation, and the effect is not that the former
decision is bad law but that it never was the law.' " 47 Adkins was thus, and had always been, a nullity. The court acknowledged that, after Adkins, it had
been thought that the District of Columbia's minimum wage statute was unconstitutional. As the court put it, " "Just about everybody was fooled.' " 48
Nonetheless, the court's view was that since the minimum wage law had always been valid, although for a period judicially unenforceable, there was no need
to reenact it. 49 Almost all other courts that have addressed the issue of whether a statute that has been
found unconstitutional can be revived have reached the same result as the Jawish court, using a similar formalistic
[*1914] analysis. 50 The sole decision in which a court adopted the nonrevival position is Jefferson v.
Jefferson, 51 a poorly reasoned decision of the Louisiana Supreme Court. The plaintiff in Jefferson sought child support and
maintenance from her husband. She prevailed at the trial level; he filed his notice of appeal one day after the end of the filing period established by the
Louisiana Uniform Rules of the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals rejected his appeal as untimely, even though the Louisiana Supreme Court had
previously found that the applicable section of the Uniform Rules violated the state constitution. One of Ms. Jefferson's arguments before the state Supreme
Court was that that court's previous ruling had been erroneous and that the rules should therefore be revived. In rejecting this claim and in finding for the
husband, the Court stated: Since we have declared the uniform court rule partially unconstitutional, it appears to be somewhat dubious that we have the
right to reconsider this ruling in the instant case as counsel for the respondent judges urges us to do. For a rule of court, like a statute, has the force and
effect of law and, when a law is stricken as void, it no longer has existence as law; the law cannot be resurrected thereafter by a judicial decree changing the
final judgment of unconstitutionality to constitutionality as this would constitute a reenactment of the law by the Court - an assumption of legislative power
not delegated to it by the Constitution. 5 The Louisiana Court thus took a mechanical approach to the revival question. According to its rationale, when a
statute is found unconstitutional, it is judicially determined never to have existed. Revival therefore entails judicial legislation and thereby violates
constitutionally mandated separation of powers: because the initial legislative passage [*1915] of the bill has no legitimacy, the bill's force is considered to
be purely a creature of judicial decision-making. Jefferson has little analytic appeal. Its view of the separation of powers doctrine is too simplistic. Contrary to
the Jefferson rationale, a "revived" law is not the pure product of judicial decision-making. It is, instead, a law that once gained the support of a legislature
and that has never been legislatively repealed. Its legitimacy rests on its initial legislative authorization. Moreover, the
view that a statute that
has been found unconstitutional should be treated as if it never existed may have had some support
in the early case law, but it has been clearly rejected by the Supreme Court. Instead of treating all statutes that it
has found unconstitutional as if they had never existed, the Court has recognized a range of circumstances in which people who rely on an overturned
decision are protected. Indeed, as will be developed, the doctrine of prospective overruling evolved to shield from harm those who relied on subsequently
overruled judicial decisions. 53 In short, the
one case in which there was a holding that a statute did not revive
does not offer a convincing rationale for nonrevival.
C. Standards –
1) Limits – allowing the aff to tinker with restrictions creates an unpredictable
floodgate of tiny affs that don’t completely remove the actual laws from the
books – explodes research burden.
2) Precision – courts do not have the power to remove laws – that’s Treanor and
Sperling. Prefer this distinction because it directs our research.
4) At best, the AFF is effects topical --- Court rulings do not reduce limitations by
themselves. They rely on other actors such as Congress or Executive agencies to
choose to enforce the Court decision. Effectually topical AFFs are an
independent voter --- they explode limits and destroy ground through
unpredictable, constantly shifting causal chains.
Should the Court lose its legitimacy and, consequently, its power, we in turn lose the benefits that only the Court
can provide. Vitally important constitutional rights and liberties, as well as minority groups, would be
unprotected and would likely suffer at the hands of an indifferent or hostile majority. An additional loss of
paramount importance is the ideal and the reality of the rule of law . All government action would be reduced
to arbitrary will and force, rather than being justified according to reason and, thus, rendered legitimate.
The consequences of the Court losing its legitimacy and the ability to play its specialized role, if we are to believe Philip Kurland, are horrible
indeed.
affected the fate of democracies worldwide, it is probably the change in the democratic superpower’s
behavior that bears most of the responsibility. If that superpower does not change its course, we are
likely to see democracy around the world rolled back further . There is nothing inevitable about democracy. The liberal
world order we have been living in these past decades was not bequeathed by “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” It is not the endpoint
of human progress. There are those who would prefer a world order different from the liberal one. Until now, however, they have not been able
to have their way, but not because their ideas of governance are impossible to enact. Who is to say that Putinism in Russia or China’s particular
brand of authoritarianism will not survive as far into the future as European democracy, which, after all, is less than a century old on most of the
continent? Autocracy in Russia and China has certainly been around longer than any Western democracy. Indeed, it is autocracy, not democracy,
that has been the norm in human history—only in recent decades have the democracies, led by the United States, had the power to shape the
world. Skeptics of U.S. “democracy promotion” have long argued that many of the places where the democratic experiment has been tried over
the past few decades are not a natural fit for that form of government, and that the United States has tried to plant democracy in some very
infertile soils. Given that democratic governments have taken deep root in widely varying circumstances, from impoverished India to
“Confucian” East Asia to Islamic Indonesia, we ought to have some modesty about asserting where the soil is right or not right for democracy.
Yet it should be clear that the
prospects for democracy have been much better under the protection of a liberal
world order, supported and defended by a democratic superpower or by a collection of democratic great
powers. Today, as always, democracy is a fragile flower. It requires constant support, constant tending, and the
plucking of weeds and fencing-off of the jungle that threaten it both from within and without. In the absence of such efforts, the jungle and the
weeds may sooner or later come back to reclaim the land.
Plan Text: The United States federal government should increase restrictions on
immigration by reducing legal immigration to levels consistent with ecological
stability and prioritizing refugees.
embroil Donald Trump’s White House in a procession of congressional investigations. As the midterm election campaign enters the homestretch
independent analysts uniformly agree Democrats are well-positioned to take control of the 435-seat chamber when
the next Congress convenes and that their odds have only gotten better since the start of the year. The
GOP enters the final two months before the vote confronting an array of flashing warning signs—
including polls fundraising and primary voter turnout—pointing to the end of one-party rule in
Washington. “There is a confluence of things that suggest a very tough outcome for Republicans ” said Sara Fagen who served as White House political director to President George W. Bush when Republicans lost the
House and Senate in the 2006 midterm election. Democrats have expanded the congressional battlefield putting more than 60 Republican-held House districts in play. They need a net gain of 23
seats to take the majority in the chamber and are seeking to take advantage of the record number of
GOP seats left open by retirements and resignations which have left Republicans extra-vulnerable . Some House
Seats Democrats Hope to Flip Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to take control of the House Sources: U.S. House of Representatives Cook Political Report as of Sept. 2 Bloomberg research Meanwhile
stagnant wages—and rising prices—have wiped away the promise of big gains for the middle class that
were a central selling point of the GOP’s single biggest legislative achievement of the past two years —a
$1.5 trillion package of tax cuts. Despite controlling the House and Senate the GOP has been unable to
deliver on two central promises of Trump’s presidential campaign: expanding the border wall and
repealing Obamacare. Then there’s Trump. The swirl of legal and political turmoil around his presidency
has continued to grow most recently with the conviction of his one-time campaign chairman in Special
Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and the guilty plea of his former lawyer in a separate probe in
New York. His approval ratings have been hovering at around 40 percent in most recent polls levels that presaged big midterm losses for previous presidents. Even Trump who has boasted of a “red wave” that would
sweep more Republicans into Congress seemed to acknowledge the headwinds his party is facing during an Oval Office interview last week with Bloomberg News. Asked about replacing House Speaker Paul Ryan who is retiring he
said: “It’s really going to be depending on the midterms. I hope that we’re going to be in a position that we’re going to have to worry about speaker.” The House battlefield ranges from traditional suburban swing areas such as those
in New Jersey and Virginia to some in less-expected areas. Districts in Kansas Maine and Kentucky that all voted for Trump in 2016 are now rated as competitive. Read more: Upset Primary Win Shows Democratic Voters Eager to
Make Changes Democrats also have upped their game in competing across the country. The party has candidates in more than 430 of the 435 congressional districts one of the highest totals in history. That would better the GOP’s
performance in 2010 when Republicans had nominees in 430 districts on their way to overturning the House Democratic majority at the midpoint of President Barack Obama’s first term. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates
39 Republican seats as toss-up or lean Democrat up from 20 in January. Trump will loom large in almost every congressional race. He’s demonstrated his ability to drive Republican voters in primaries most recently in Florida’s
gubernatorial contest. But his record’s been mixed in special elections pitting a Republican candidate against a Democrat. November will test whether Trump’s pull with Republicans is enough to counter the intensity of Democratic
voter anger. President’s Midterm Party Losses According to Gallup President Trump’s job approval stood at 41% on Sept. 2 Sources: Gallup American Presidency Project Bloomberg research Trump’s lone-wolf style of governing his
tendency to put himself above what might be best for his own party and his unpredictability—something he views as central to his own political brand—remain major variables Republicans can’t control. White House aides have said
Trump plans to spend more than 40 days campaigning between the beginning of August and the election. That would outpace the off-year election efforts of Obama and Bush both of whom saw their party’s congressional majorities
evaporate in midterm wave elections. On Thursday he's in Montana and on Friday he's scheduled to be in North Dakota. Both are states he won in 2016 and where Republicans are trying to unseat incumbent Democratic senators in
November. If he were on the ballot this year Trump told Bloomberg people would come out and vote. “The question is whether or not it’s going to transfer.” How Poll Participants Said They’d Vote in U.S. House Race Generic ballot
questions in polls ask which party’s candidate voters would pick in their House district without naming candidates. Results from wave election years and this year. Sources: Pew Research Center Brookings Institution So far it hasn’t.
The average of
In an ABC News/Washington Post poll conducted Aug. 26-29 registered voters said they’d favor a Democratic candidate over a Republican one in their district 52 percent to 38 percent.
recent polls compiled by RealClearPolitics is a 9.3 percentage point Democratic advantage. Trump is
unlikely to be welcomed by Republicans in suburban swing districts where some GOP lawmakers are
running television ads emphasizing their willingness to “stand up” to him . Those candidates will do as much as possible to keep the president
out of the campaign conversation. “You make the argument that the Republican candidate is the better choice to advance the values perspectives and interests of that particular district ” said Republican strategist and pollster Whit
Ayres. “This is not about Donald Trump one way or the other. This is about who the best choice is for this state or this district.” The Senate is a more comfortable spot for Republicans even though their majority hangs on a two-vote
margin. Democrats are defending 17 more Senate seats than the GOP including 10 in states Trump won in 2016. While the party has a shot at capturing Senate seats in Arizona Nevada and Tennessee five of the most vulnerable
market and robust economic growth Republicans have had a hard time capitalizing on the gains . Unemployment
Before and After Midterm ‘Wave’ Elections Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics Note: Data is seasonally adjusted The economy expanded at a 4.2 percent annualized rate in the second quarter the fastest since 2014 and the
that Trump and congressional Republicans promised would result from the corporate tax cuts that took
effect Jan. 1 hasn’t materialized. In fact real wages have remained mostly stagnant as inflation and higher
health-care costs have eaten into modest pay gains. Read more: Wage Stagnation Undercuts Trump’s Promise to ‘Forgotten Man’ Some in the GOP have
complained that a lack of legislative accomplishments beyond the tax cuts—including the failure to
revamp immigration laws build a wall along the entire southern U.S. border and repeal Obamacare—has weakened the GOP’s standing with
voters. Representative Dennis Ross of Florida said he fears his party will lose the House because of its inability to pass laws and keep promises. There are “little legislative failures that are adding up ” said Ross who’s retiring
at the end of this term Fagen agreed. “The overall environment is not terrible for Republicans but the combination of where the president sits and the
challenges Republicans have had in getting some things done in Congress and some scandals are
problematic ” she said. Still she added that predictions are dangerous in the Trump era. “This isn’t your mother’s political environment so it’s hard to base things on history.” John Lapp a strategist who served as
executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006 said his party would be best served by focusing on core issues—health-care costs wages and congressional accountability—and avoid being
distracted by Trump. “He is melting down all by himself ” he said. Besides being a referendum on Trump the midterms will also measure whether women can expand their presence in Congress. More than 20 will be major party
nominees for Senate seats breaking the record of 18 set in 2012 according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. With primaries not concluding until mid-September the center’s data shows that 179
Democratic women and 51 Republican women have won House primaries so far already shattering the previous record of 167 in 2016. Female candidates and voters are especially important to Democrats. Polls are showing a sharp
gender split with women leaning heavily toward backing Democratic candidates. Senate Map Benefits Republicans But Democrats Have a Few Openings President Trump carried seven of eight states in 2016 that are identified by the
Cook Political Report as "toss-up" races in 2018 Sources: U.S. Senate Cook Political Report as of Sept. 2 Bloomberg research *Republican incumbents in Arizona Utah and Tennessee are retiring and not seeking reelection. Bernie
Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine both independents running for reelection caucus with the Democrats and are shown in blue. One of the biggest obstacles for Democrats is the formidable congressional district maps
Republican-controlled state legislatures drew after the 2010 election. Another is the concentration of their own voters in the cores of major metropolitan areas while Republicans are spread over a wider area. That was reflected in
Trump’s 2016 victory. He lost the popular vote by about 3 million in 2016 but won more congressional districts 230 to 205. Another major unknown is whether the large number of first-time candidates among the Democrats can
take a punch. While many look good on paper to party strategists they’re untested and will come under close scrutiny and many attacks in the weeks ahead. As much as this will be an election driven by feelings about the president
In California where five House districts are rated as tossups Republicans hope a gas
local issues could play a role on the margins.
tax-repeal effort also on the ballot will help boost conservative turnout . If control of the House ends up being close all eyes could
be on those five California seats. Polls don’t close there until 11 p.m. East Coast time and the state is known for a lengthy counting process because of widespread use of vote-by-mail ballots
that don’t have to be postmarked until Election Day.
Immigration reform without border security costs Democrats the election. The plan
turns off key independent and moderate voters.
The Hill 2/14/2018 “Democrats will lose this fall by fighting over immigration now”
http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/373883-democrats-will-lose-this-fall-by-fighting-over-immigration-
now
By focusing exclusively on the Dreamers and offering no practical limits on immigration, much less any border security, the Democrats are in the
process of writing their own political obituary for November and beyond. But a deal with President Trump can turn this perennially difficult issue into
an electoral benefit. Here’s how.
President Trump has proposed a compromise by offering a path to citizenship for 1.8 million Dreamers, building a wall on the southern border,
ending the visa lottery program, and ending what he calls “chain migration” and what the Democrats call “family unification.”
In fact, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) has proposed a bill in Congress based on these four planks. The Democrats have previously said this
proposal is dead-on-arrival, which is a clear mistake and there are some small bits of evidence now that the party is waking up to the fact that
the Schumer-Pelosi approach was just plain wrong.
This past weekend, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) teased that he might be willing to support the president’s wall. The precise words
Blumenthal used were an openness to “strengthening some of the physical structures and fence,” indicating that he was prepared to accept the
president’s deal. This deal offers a pathway to citizenship for more than twice as many Dreamers as President Obama protected through his
2012 DACA executive order in exchange for simply securing the border.
The statistical evidence is very clear that border security and controlling immigration remain central
issues for the American people, particularly the 9.2 percent of Obama voters who defected from the
Democratic Party to vote for President Trump, based on a report from the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. Contrary to what the
Democrats have maintained, border security tests extremely well in public polling. The latest Harvard-Harris poll found that
an overwhelming majority, 79 percent, of Americans believe the U nited States needs secure borders .
While immigration reform has been framed by Democrats as a tradeoff between a popular initiative for the Dreamers and an unpopular wall,
this is a misreading of public opinion. The
wall is indeed unpopular, but it actually serves as a proxy for border security,
which remains a central concern of many voters, especially in swing states and among noncollege-
educated whites.
In terms of electoral politics, if
the Democrats are to regain the House, they will need to win back Obama-Trump
voters in the Midwest, as well as independents and moderates throughout the country . In fact, 10 of the 38
Republicans who are retiring or otherwise vacating their seats in 2018 are from the four Midwestern states of Indiana, Michigan, Ohio and
Pennsylvania.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll also finds that the advantage Democrats hold in the generic congressional vote comes almost
entirely from districts the party already holds. Indeed, the Democrats hold a lead by a strong 38 points in their own districts, yet trail
Republicans by six points in the very districts they need to flip in order to regain the House.
It is very clear that immigration may very well have made the difference in 2016. In conjunction with the Democracy Fund
Voter Study Group’s report, John Sides from George Washington University also found that attitudes about illegal immigration were
strongly correlated with vote switching. In particular, the voters who were most likely to switch from Obama
to Trump opposed a pathway to citizenship and believed that immigrants detract from American society.
Thus, to expand their base of support, the party needs to win back the precise voters who defected from
President Obama to give Donald Trump his electoral college victory by reconciling their positions on immigration. It may well be that
the Democrats and Republicans can arrive at a compromise, which, on the whole, would work in the Democrats favor because the primary
objective is to take the issue off the table.
This means GOP will lead to offshore drilling---locks in warming which causes extinction
Patrick Parenteau 17, professor of law at Vermont Law School, 1/3/17, “Will Trump Scuttle Obama's Offshore Drilling
Bans?,” https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/01/03/will-trump-scrap-obama-s-offshore-drilling-bans //Elmer
President Obama gave environmental advocates a Christmas present when he announced in late December that he was
banning oil and gas drilling in huge swaths of the Arctic and Atlantic oceans. This action “indefinitely”
protects almost 120 million acres of ecologically important and highly sensitive marine environments from the risks of oil spills and other
industrial impacts. President Obama acted boldly to conserve important ecological resources and solidify his
environmental legacy. But by making creative use of an obscure provision of a 1953 law, Obama ignited a legal and
political firestorm. Republicans and oil industry trade groups are threatening to challenge the ban in court
or through legislation. They also contend that the Trump administration can act directly to reverse it. But a close reading of the
law suggests that it could be difficult to undo Obama’s sweeping act. The power to withdraw Congress passed the law
now known as the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in 1953 to assert federal control over submerged lands that lie more then three miles
offshore, beyond state coastal waters. Section 12(a) of the law authorizes the president to “withdraw from disposition
any of the unleased lands of the outer Continental Shelf.” Starting in 1960 with the Eisenhower administration, six
presidents from both parties have used this power. Most withdrawals were time-limited, but some were long-term. For example, in 1990
President George H. W. Bush permanently banned oil and gas development in California’s Monterey Bay, which later became a national marine
sanctuary. President Obama used section 12(a) in 2014 to protect Alaska’s Bristol Bay, one of the most productive wild salmon fisheries in the
world. In 2015 he took the same step for approximately 9.8 million acres in the biologically rich Chukchi and Beaufort
seas. Obama’s latest action bars energy production in 115 million more acres of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas – an area known as the
“Arctic Ring of Life” because of its importance to Inupiat Peoples who have lived there for millennia. The order also withdraws
3.8 million acres off the Atlantic Coast from Norfolk, Virginia to Canada, including several unique and largely
unexplored coral canyons. Why Obama acted In a Presidential Memorandum on the Arctic withdrawals, Obama provided three reasons for his
action. First, he asserted, these areas have irreplaceable value for marine mammals, other wildlife, wildlife habitat, scientific research and
Alaska Native subsistence use. Second, they are extremely vulnerable to oil spills. Finally, drilling for oil and responding to spills in Arctic waters
poses unique logistical, operational, safety and scientific challenges. In ordering the Atlantic withdrawals, Obama cited his responsibility to
“ensure that the unique resources associated with these canyons remain available for future generations.” Market forces support Obama’s
action. Royal Dutch Shell stopped drilling in the Chukchi Sea in 2015 after spending US$7 billion and drilling in what proved to be a dry hole.
Since 2008 the Interior Department has canceled or withdrawn a number of sales in Alaskan waters due to low demand. Shell, ConocoPhillips,
Statoil, Chevron, BP and Exxon have all to some degree abandoned offshore Arctic drilling. Low oil prices coupled with high drilling costs make
business success in the region a risky prospect. Lloyd’s of London forecast this scenario in a 2012 report that called offshore drilling in the Arctic
“a unique and hard-to-manage risk.” What happens next? Critics of President Obama’s action, including the state of Alaska and the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce, say they may challenge Obama’s order in court, in hopes that the Trump administration will opt not to defend it. But
environmental groups, which hailed Obama’s action, will seek to intervene in any such lawsuit. Moreover, to demonstrate that they have
standing to sue, plaintiffs would have to show that they have suffered or face imminent injury; that this harm was caused by Obama’s action;
and that it can be redressed by the court. Market conditions will make this very difficult. The Energy Information Administration currently
projects that crude oil prices, which averaged about $43 per barrel through 2016, will rise to only about $52 per barrel in 2017. Whether these
areas will ever be commercially viable is an open question, especially since rapid changes are taking place in the electricity and transportation
sectors, and other coastal areas are open for leasing in Alaska’s near-shore waters and the Gulf of Mexico. The Royal Dutch Shell drilling
rig Kulluk broke loose and ran aground near Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska as it was being towed to Seattle for winter maintenance in
December 2012. This Coast Guard overflight video shows the harsh conditions along Alaska’s coast in winter. Alternatively, Donald Trump could
12(a) does not provide any authority for
issue his own memorandum in office seeking to cancel Obama’s. However, section
presidents to revoke actions by their predecessors . It delegates authority to presidents to withdraw land
unconditionally. Once they take this step, only Congress can undo it. This issue has never been litigated. Opponents can
be expected to argue that Obama’s use of section 12(a) in this manner is unconstitutional because it violates the so-called
“nondelegation doctrine,” which basically holds that Congress cannot delegate legislative functions to the executive branch without articulating
some “intelligible principles.” However, one could argue that Obama’s action was based on an articulation of intelligible principles gleaned from
the stated policies of the OCSLA, which recognizes that the “the outer Continental Shelf is a vital national resource reserve held by the Federal
Government for the public.” The law expressly recognizes both the energy and environmental values of the OCS. Thus President Obama’s
decision reflects a considered judgment that the national interest is best served by protecting the unique natural resources of these areas, while
at the same time weaning the nation from its dangerous dependence on fossil fuels. The section 12(a) authority is similar in some respects to
the authority granted by the Antiquities Act, which authorizes the president to “reserve parcels of land as a part of [a] national monument.” Like
the OCSLA, the Antiquities Act does not authorize subsequent presidents to undo the designations of their predecessors. Obama has also used
this power extensively – most recently, last week when he designated two new national monuments in Utah and Nevada totaling 1.65 million
acres. Some laws do include language that allows such actions to be revoked. Examples include the Forest Service Organic Administration Act,
under which most national forests were established, and the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which sets out policies for
managing multiple-use public lands. The fact that Congress chose not to include revocation language in the OCSLA indicates that it did not
intend to provide such power. What can the new Congress do? Under Article IV of the Constitution, Congress
has plenary authority
to dispose of federal property as it sees fit. This would include the authority to open these areas to
leasing for energy development. Members of Alaska’s congressional delegation are considering introducing legislation to
override Obama’s drilling ban. But Democrats could filibuster to block any such move,
and Republicans – who will hold a 52-48 margin in the Senate – would need 60 votes to stop them. On the other
hand, Congress may be content to let President-elect Trump make the first move and see how it goes in court. If Trump attempts to reverse the
withdrawal, environmental groups contesting his decision would face some of the same obstacles as an industry challenge to Obama’s action. It
could be especially challenging for environmental groups to show that the claim is “ripe” for judicial review, at least until a post-Obama
administration acts to actually open up these areas for leasing. That may not occur for some time, given the weak market for the oil in these
regions. In the meantime, this
decision is a fitting capstone for a president who has done everything within his
power to confront the existential threat of climate change and rationally move the nation and
the world onto a safer and more sustainable path.
Framing
Framing (Extinction)
Evaluating consequences is key to ethics
David Runciman 17, Politics, Cambridge University, “Political Theory and Real Politics in the Age of the Internet,” The Journal of
Political Philosophy, Volume 25, Issue 1, March 2017, Pages 3–21 //Elmer
Contemporary political realism carries echoes of this line of argument and of Bentham's shift from the weaker to the stronger version of it, even
though Bentham's direct influence is rarely in evidence. Critics of the current ubiquity of the language of human rights often point out that in
the absence of a robust account of the power relations that are needed to underpin any rights regime—in particular, an answer to the question
of who does the enforcing—all such talk is a massive distraction from the real business of improving the situation on the ground to which
human rights are meant to apply.9 But for more radical critics the emptiness of human rights talk is too convenient to be merely a confusion: it
serves as the perfect cover for the sinister interests of those engaged in neo-colonial projects of exploitation and expropriation.10 However,
these two poles of the Benthamite case against moralism—from inadvertent confusion to deliberate deception—do not exhaust the range of
explanations for what is wrong with it. There is another answer, drawn from an alternative intellectual tradition, which appears more frequently
in the current realist literature. This is the Weberian idea that moralism
does not so much obscure what politicians are
really up to, as conceal the truth about their personal motives from political actors themselves. In other
words, political moralism is less a form of deception than of self-deception: it lets politicians
avoid looking political reality squarely in the face because it allows them to believe they have
their eyes set on something higher. Conviction politicians think they can transcend the messy
reality of politics. That belief is dangerous because their response when they encounter the messy
reality is to deny it, or to ignore it, or to insist they can mould it to their higher
purposes, which only makes the mess worse. Weber's case against allowing an ethic of conviction
to trump an ethic of responsibility in politics—which requires, among other things, that politicians face up
to the unintended consequences of what they do—remains compelling.11 But it does not map onto any sharp
distinctions between realism and moralism. That is because the convictions that can breed self-deception are not
necessarily moralistic beliefs; they can be beliefs about anything, including beliefs about
how contingency trumps moral certainty. On the Weberian account it is not what you believe but how
you believe it that makes the difference. Realists, too, can be self-deceived, because the strength of their convictions against
moralism produces its own self-deceptions and blind spots. This is the case that can be made against Bentham, who was so thoroughly dogmatic
about the vapidity of all talk of rights that it served to blind him to what was missing from his own understanding of politics. Macaulay made the
point in his celebrated takedown of the Benthamites published in the Edinburgh Review in 1829: ‘They surrender their understandings … to the
meanest and most abject sophisms, provided these sophisms come before them disguised with the externals of demonstration. They do not
seem to know that logic has its illusions as well as rhetoric—that a fallacy may lurk in a syllogism as well as a metaphor.’12 Bentham was
insufficiently sensitive to the ways in which the attempt to ground political argument in the language of force neglects the capacity of other
sorts of arguments to move people successfully. Conviction politics is not simply the preserve of the moralisers. Likewise, it is not the case that moral political
philosophy is itself incapable of seeing the merit of arguments that point towards the unavoidability of unintended consequences. Just as realists can be blind to contingency, so moralists can be alive to it. Take the example of
Robert Nozick, the most prominent early critic of Rawlsian political philosophy from within the discourse of rights. Nozick's ‘Wilt Chamberlain example’ was designed to highlight the inability of Rawlsian schemes of justice to
accommodate the unintended consequences of cumulative instances of contingent rightful action on the part of individuals (in this case, their willingness to hand over small amounts of their own money to watch the best basketball
player around ply his trade, which would generate unjustifiable inequalities of wealth—Chamberlain becomes very rich—unless the state intervenes to circumscribe their choices).13 The challenge to Rawls is to adapt his patterned
view of justice to a world in which events inevitably take place that will break up the pattern. But this challenge does not come from a realist; it comes from a moralist (and a self-professed utopian to boot). There are many possible
ways to push back against the apparent force of the Wilt Chamberlain example.14 A realist response would be to challenge the assumptions behind the case itself. We live in societies that enrich leading sportspeople on a scale that
even Nozick might have found hard to imagine (Nozick envisages Chamberlain earning $250,000; his contemporary equivalent—LeBron James—earned more than $50,000,000 in 2015). But the players’ wealth is not simply the
cumulative consequence of the unfettered choice of large numbers of people to hand over small amounts of money to watch them play. Any such relationship—between fans and performers—is mediated by vast institutional
structures of commodification and exchange, which make it very hard to follow the money from individual consumers to the pockets of the superstars. It passes through the hands of many others—broadcasters, agents, advertisers,
and administrators—such that the path of justice may be at best obscured and more likely undermined (recent revelations about how FIFA operates do not inspire confidence that this is a transparently just business). A further
iteration of the realist response would indicate that an example drawn from the world of sports is itself a misleading one. Though polling evidence suggests that in our increasingly unequal societies it is sporting celebrities and their
like who are widely believed to be reaping the most outsize rewards—on the assumption that there is at least some correlation between reward and measurable talent—most of the superrich in fact come from the financial services
industry, where visible talent is much harder to identify.15 Tracing the just transfer of money in Nozick's terms from individual consumers to the pockets of bankers would be a thoroughly thankless task. In that sense, the Wilt
So realists can respond to Nozick's argument
Chamberlain example appears designed to play into our unwarranted presuppositions about the workings of the free market. It serves as a smokescreen.
about contingency with some contingencies of their own. But so too can Rawlsians. It is possible to turn Nozick's argument on its head. He
purports to grant Rawls his ideal society in order to show that no political ideal can survive eventualities for which it was not designed.
But what if Nozick is granted his ideal society—his utopia—in which there is no political eventuality that cannot be
justified in terms of the underlying individual rights that must remain un-breached for any social
arrangement to count as just. That society will also be subject to unforeseen contingencies, including
emergent monopolies and other market failures. Correcting for those failures will require breaches of
rights in Nozick's terms; but sitting back and doing nothing will make the preservation of the conditions
of justice—which includes the ability to track the distribution of wealth through a series of free exchanges—much more difficult.
There is a real world variant of this argument that illustrates what can be at stake. Critics of the most
urgent demands to address the threat of climate change tend to argue that pre-emptive responses will preclude
the sort of market innovation that offers the best chance of finding a solution.16 In other words, patterned state intervention
forecloses the opportunities provided by being open to unforeseen contingencies. But equally,
openness to contingency can be its own form of limitation, if it forecloses the opportunities
provided by state intervention in the face of failure. Putting one's faith in an unforeseen future to
generate outcomes that will in due course solve the problems of the present rules out the
possibility of an unforeseen future that requires action in the present to solve its looming
problems. Those whose convictions blindly ‘
favour contingency and the free exchange of ideas can be as self-deceived in Weber's sense as those who want to intervene in the name of a
better politics. All convictions, however adaptable, have an edge of fatalism to them.17
(_) Every criticism Nate Cohn makes applies to the aff- they rely on expert
interpretation, they’re not showing where the data came from, they haven’t met
Cohn’s “burden of proof” because they haven’t shown us the method section of the
studies they cite or justified each step, they haven’t filled in myriad gaps like “what are
the reimbursement rates, who sets them, what data would they use”… - vote neg on
presumption
Even Cohn says they have to beat the DA on specifics- they over-generalize the
argument and lead to lazy, poor analysis
- Read this Card ONLY if they also read Cohn ev saying DA are Bad
Cohn 13 [Nate Cohn is a domestic correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times, previously worked as a staff writer for The New
Republic, as a research associate at The Henry L. Stimson Center and a debate coach at Whitman college, 12-12-2013,
http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php?topic=5416.0;wap2]//Elmer
Based on my conversations with other policy judges, it may be possible to pull it off with even less work. They might
be willing to
summarily disregard “absurd” arguments , like politics disadvantages, on the grounds that it’s patently
unrealistic, that we know the typical burden of rejoinder yields unrealistic scenarios , and that judges
should assess debates in ways that produce realistic assessments . I don’t think this is too different from elements of
Jonah Feldman’s old philosophy, where he basically said “when I assessed 40 percent last year, it’s 10 percent now.” Honestly, I was surprised
that the few judges I talked to were so amenable to this argument. For me, just
saying “it’s absurd, and you know
it” wouldn’t be enough against an argument in which the other team invested considerable time. The more developed
argument about accurate risk assessment would be more convincing, but I still think it would
be vulnerable to a typical defense of the burden of rejoinder. To be blunt: I want debaters to
learn why a disadvantage is absurd, not just make assertions that conform to their preexisting
notions of what’s realistic and what’s not. And perhaps more importantly for this discussion, I could not coach a team to
rely exclusively on this argument—I’m not convinced that enough judges are willing to discount a disadvantage on “it’s absurd.” Nonetheless, I
think this is a useful “frame” that should preface a following, more robust explanation of why the risk of the
disadvantage is basically zero—even before a substantive response is offered. There are other, broad genres of argument that can contest the
substance of the negative’s argument. There are serious methodological indictments of the various forms of knowledge production, from
journalistic reporting to think tanks to quantitative social science. Many of our most strongly worded cards come from people giving opinions,
for which they offer very little data or evidence. And even when “qualified” people are giving predictions, there’s a great case to be extremely
skeptical without real evidence backing it up. The world is a complicated place, predictions are hard, and most people are wrong. And again, this
is before contesting the substance of the negative’s argument(!)—if deemed necessary.