"You don't say 'Creep, Creep' unless you're quoting TLC..."

The title to this post is simply an excuse to quote the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg film, "The Other Guys," which I watched and quite enjoyed over the weekend. Though, it's not entirely irrelevant to the latest piece by Krauthammer. Charlie and George Will have been writing about the President's latest liberal designs and how he attempts to circumvent the half-Republican congress through regulation:

On Dec. 23, the Interior Department issued Secretarial Order 3310, reversing a 2003 decision and giving itself the authority to designate public lands as "Wild Lands." A clever twofer: (1) a bureaucratic power grab - for seven years up through Dec. 22, wilderness designation had been the exclusive province of Congress, and (2) a leftward lurch - more land to be "protected" from such nefarious uses as domestic oil exploration in a country disastrously dependent on foreign sources.

The very same day, the Environmental Protection Agency declared that in 2011 it would begin drawing up anti-carbon regulations on oil refineries and power plants, another power grab effectively enacting what Congress had firmly rejected when presented as cap-and-trade legislation.

For an Obama bureaucrat, however, the will of Congress is a mere speed bump. Hence this regulatory trifecta, each one moving smartly left - and nicely clarifying what the spirit of bipartisan compromise that President Obama heralded in his post-lame-duck Dec. 22 news conference was really about: a shift to the center for public consumption and political appearance only.

I think the regulatory scheme is largely the prerogative of the executive and that, so long as the implementation of legislation does not exceed the scope of the legislation, then the executive does not run afoul of the constitution. I also think that this complaint by Krauthammer is alarmism over an alleged creeping of the executive power. I think that perhaps the fear is legitimate but that the complaints regarding the Obama administration are, at best, premature. How much regulation is permitted under our scheme? What is an acceptable level of regulation by the executive.?