Executive Orders, Regulatory Agencies, and the Constitution

A reader on Facebook asked me about how the Executive Branch is making law through its regulatory agencies, and through Executive Orders:

His Question: Doug, I stumbled on to this site that apparently creates new federal regulations under Executive Orders by the President. Can you look at it. If I'm reading this correctly, Unconstitutional executive orders are given to an agency to unconstitutionally create unconstitutional federal regulations. Let me know. http://www.reginfo.gov/public/
My Response: Okay, so the question I have is does the regulations regulate existing laws made pursuant to the Constitution? Executive Orders can create agencies, and create regulations of existing laws, but if the rule-making is not related to existing laws made pursuant to the Constitution, the Executive Orders are unconstitutional. The Executive Branch was created to execute the laws of the nation, so creating regulations is not a problem, unless those regulations are creating new rules for laws that don't exist, or if those regulations are for laws that do not fall within the authorities of the federal government as per the Constitution. If the Executive's actions are creating law, then that is unconstitutional. This President, unfortunately, has been doing exactly that. He has been creating new laws via his regulatory agencies and Executive Orders (such as Energy Department's Cap and Trade regulations after the law failed in Congress), and he has been modifying laws which is also not within his constitutional authorities, or the authorities granted to his regulatory agencies. This is where We the People, through our States, need to step in and work to stop the madness. This can be accomplished by communicating to our representatives, voting out those representatives that refuse to abide by the Constitution, and ultimately for the States to nullify unconstitutional laws.

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