{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=D9289625-4D46-4013-A91C-809B3F22B4B4", "Barrasso: Courts Are Striking Down Pres. Obama's Executive Overreach", "2016-07-07", "2016", "2016-07", "Republican", "House", "WY", "John Barrasso", "B001261", "www.barrasso.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Click here to watch Sen. Barrasso\u2019s remarks.\r\nWASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014 Today, U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) delivered the following remarks on the Senate floor on how federal courts are striking down the Obama administration\u2019s executive overreach.\r\nExcerpts of Senator Barrasso\u2019s remarks:\r\n\u201cSenator Thune was just on the floor talking about executive overreach.\r\n\u201cWell let me tell you, two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a stinging rebuke and a stinging defeat to the Obama administration, and to its immigration amnesty plan.\r\n\u201cIt has been a string of stinging defeats for the president\u2019s approach of what I believe is executive overreach. The courts agree with me.\r\n\u201cFor years, President Obama has been acting like he believes he has unlimited power\u2014unlimited power to do whatever he wants to do. Regardless of what the law of the land says.\r\n\u201cNow the courts have finally said enough is enough.\r\n\u201cIn this case, President Obama decided that for political purposes he was going to stop enforcing some of the country\u2019s immigration laws.\r\n\u201cTwenty-six states said that that was outrageous \u2013 and they filed a lawsuit.\r\n\u201cIt is the president\u2019s job to enforce the laws of the United States.\r\n\u201cAnd the law is very clear. The law is clear when it comes to immigration, and the president\u2019s deciding to change it, basically says he is willing to ignore the law. Because he didn\u2019t come to Congress to get it changed, he decided to do it through regulation alone.\r\n\u201cThe courts have said that it is not the president\u2019s call \u2013 and they have now blocked the president\u2019s amnesty plan.\r\n\u201cDuring an event in 2013, the president actually seemed to understand that he was just one part of America\u2019s government.\r\n\u201cHe said, \u2018The problem is that I\u2019m the president of the United States, I\u2019m not the emperor of the United States.\u2019\r\n\u201cHe went on to say, \u2018My job is to execute the laws that are passed.\u2019\r\n\u201cHe understood that at that time, it was his job. At least he understood in 2013.\r\n\u201cSo what happened between then and now?\r\n\u201cIf the president says as he did that I\u2019m not the emperor, why is it that it seems almost every action that he takes seems to show that he wants to act as if he is the emperor?\r\n\u201cTime after time, he has shown that he considers himself above the law.\r\n\u201cNow, we know he doesn\u2019t like to deal with Congress \u2013 not with Republicans or Democrats\u2014he likes to ignore Congress.\r\n\u201cHe doesn\u2019t like having to deal with the courts \u2013 so he tries to pack them full of people who will rule the way that he tells them to rule. We\u2019ve seen that when Harry Reid changed the rules of the Senate.\r\n\u201cIt seems the president doesn\u2019t like to listen to the voters either, so he goes ahead and does what he wants to do, no matter what the American people say that they want.\r\n\u201cThis case last month is not the first time that the federal court has said that President Obama has acted above the law \u2013 or even against the law.\r\n\u201cLast June, the Supreme Court struck down a regulation that was a big part of the Obama administration\u2019s war on coal.\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court said that the Washington bureaucrats who wrote this rule never even considered the overwhelming costs that they were imposing on hard-working American families.\r\n\u201cThe court said: \u2018One would not say that it is even rational, never mind appropriate, to impose billions of dollars in economic costs in return for a few dollars in health or environmental benefits.\u2019\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court told President Obama that he is the president of the United States, not the emperor of the United States.\r\n\u201cThen, look what happened last October, another court, the U.S. appeals court blocked the Obama administration\u2019s new regulations that vastly expanded the definition of \u2018waters of the United States.\u2019\r\n\u201cThe appeals court stepped in and stopped the administration\u2019s actions because of what it called \u2018the sheer breadth of the ripple effects caused by the rule.\u2019\r\n\u201cThis appeals court told President Obama that he is the president of the United States, he is not the emperor.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s the same thing that the Supreme Court told President Obama in February.\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court stopped another EPA rule over carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants. Power plants that have been there are functioning.\r\n\u201cJust like with the so-called waters of the U.S. rule, the court said that the administration could not just go ahead and do whatever it wanted to do.\r\n\u201cThis rule could do so much damage, that the court stopped the president in his tracks.\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court said they are very skeptical of an administration that does that.\r\n\u201cThe court said, \u2018We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast economic and political significance.\u2019\r\n\u201cCongress never did that with the carbon dioxide rule.\r\n\u201cThe Obama administration just made it up.\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court told President Obama that he is the president of the United States, not the emperor.\r\n\u201cIn May, the Supreme Court issued another decision to stop the Obama administration from taking away people\u2019s rights\u2014their rights to use their own land.\r\n\u201cThis had to do with the way the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was taking control of private land.\r\n\u201cThe Obama administration went so far overboard that they said people shouldn\u2019t even be allowed to challenge the Obama administration\u2019s decisions in court.\r\n\u201cThis president doesn\u2019t want Congress to have any say in what he does \u2013 and now he doesn\u2019t even want the courts to have any say in what he does.\r\n\u201cAmerican families shouldn\u2019t have to fight Washington just to use their own property.\r\n\u201cThey certainly shouldn\u2019t have to fight with one hand tied behind their backs.\r\n\u201cThis was a unanimous decision against the president by the Supreme Court \u2013 even the most liberal justices voted against the president on this issue to show how much executive overreach we\u2019re dealing with.\r\n\u201cThe Supreme Court told the president once again that he is the president of the United States, not the emperor of the United States.\r\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s been one case after another saying the exact same thing.\r\n\u201cI just want to give one final example of this string of stinging defeats for President Obama.\r\n\u201cLast month the U.S. District Court in Wyoming shut down President Obama\u2019s latest attempt to stop American energy production.\r\n\u201cIt had to do with regulations on hydraulic fracturing on land controlled by Washington and by Indian tribes.\r\n\u201cThe judge in this case said the administration had no authority what-so-ever to issue this regulation in the first place.\r\n\u201cThis was a judge appointed by President Obama.\r\n\u201cThe judge wrote that \u2018Congress has not directed the [administration] to enact regulations governing hydraulic fracturing. Indeed, Congress has expressly removed federal agency authority to regulate the activity, making its intent clear.\u2019\r\n\u201cThe court told President Obama definitely and definitively that he is the president of the United States, not the emperor of the United States.\r\n\u201cSix different court decisions in the past year.\r\n\u201cAll of them against the president.\r\n\u201cEven the judges that he has picked, hand-picked for the Supreme Court, are refusing to play along with all of his power grabs and his illegal overreach.\r\n\u201cThe American people are no longer buying the president\u2019s excuses and his promises.\r\n\u201cBack in January, the White House chief of staff promised that the Obama administration was going to in the final year, the eighth year of the Obama administration, was going to have a year of \u2018audacious executive action\u2019 in the president\u2019s last year in office.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s time for the president and his staff should rethink their plans.\r\n\u201cThey should recognize that they do not have the legal support \u2013 or the popular support \u2013 for all of the regulations and for all of their illegal actions.\r\n\u201cThe president is not an emperor, although he may think that he is.\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s time for him to recognize the fact.\r\n\u201cIt is time for the President of the United States to do the job he was elected to do, and to follow and to obey the law of the land.\u201d\r\n  \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 ###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.barrasso.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/news-releases?ID=D9289625-4D46-4013-A91C-809B3F22B4B4"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.115488052368164, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}