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I think the argument is that the EPA considered itself to have broad discretion and congress was silent on the matter, and more generally do the executive functions have whatever discretion they assume to have unless congress specifically limits them? Or rather, do they have only the permit that congress gives them?

They’ve declined to do a lot over the last decade :)

Moscow cocaine McConnell has sand bagged any progress on anything substantive in return for the handsome bribes he’s accepted and arranged.

Well, see, that's exactly the question. How broad was the authority that Congress gave them?

"Congress gave them broad authority" != "they have authority over everything they can in any way claim relates (however loosely) to their mandate".

That's a horrible argument. The Executive branch should never had default allow permissions for anything. The amount of mental gymnastic many of our current regulator bodies have used to claim more authority is already obscene.