Collusive Lawsuits Cheat Public, Circumvent Constitution, Writes Physician in Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons

TUCSON, Ariz., June 12, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- If Congress balks at enacting a costly and oppressive law, political activists often get around it by filing a lawsuit against an administrative agency, very often the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The agency isn't really an opponent in the lawsuit. Rather, it welcomes it as an opportunity to expand its power. Through a collusive consent decree, costly rules can be imposed on an industry without even the bother of a notice-and-comment period.

A nongovernmental organization (NGO) such as the American Lung Association, for example, sues the EPA. Then, "the lawsuit settles and EPA awards them grants, and in other forums treats them like allies," writes emergency physician John Dale Dunn, M.D., J.D., in the summer issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

Air pollution rules are a prominent example, but the "sue and settle" tactic is part of perverted regulatory regimes in other areas, including civil rights, education, integration, labor law, and economic and banking regulation, Dunn notes. EPA has entered into more than 60 consent decree settlements with 100 new regulations that circumvented normal procedures for rules and regulations.  Many of those collusive consent decrees involved environmental and endangered species regulations and designations.  

"Not only was there no opportunity for public comment, but legislators and others could avoid public scrutiny and prevent intervention by affected parties," Dunn explains.

This method of "democracy by decree" or rule by judges, which occurs behind closed doors, violates the Separation of Powers in the U.S. Constitution, and seriously undermines representative government and government accountability to the people.

"If you or I went into court with a collusive lawsuit, a judge would instantly take note," Dunn writes, "but in the case of agency and government collusive lawsuits, the judges are part of the fraud."

The Journal is the official, peer-reviewed publication of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943 to preserve private medicine and the patient-physician relationship.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

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