If the president decides to do something during time of war, is it by definition legal?

Bad policy initiated by Nixon, carried to new (?)heights by Cheney.

A senior aide to Dick Cheney has been shortlisted for a top regulatory post at the Department of Energy. The Washington Post reported today that anti-regulation crusader F. Chase Hutto is poised to ascend to the post of assistant secretary for policy and internatioal affairs at the Department of Energy.

Hutto is a natural choice for a top regulatory post in the Bush administration–one colleague describes the former CATO Institute intern and Bush campaign volunteer as “naturally and philosophically opposed to regulation.”

As deputy assistant to the Vice President for domestic policy, Hutto was part of a clique of Cheney advisers and oil industry lobbyists who worked together to shift the Bush administration’s policy on climate change.

The Bush administration seemed poised to classify greenhouse emissions as health hazards, a dramatic policy shift which would have empowered the EPA to regulate emissions under the Clean Air Act. The proposal had broad support at the top levels of the EPA.