来源：《华盛顿邮报》
原文刊登日期：2023年2月6日
President Biden’s decision on Jan. 30 to formally end the covid-19 national emergency this spring, unilaterally giving up exceptional powers the executive branch has claimed for three years, is a milestone worth celebrating. If declaring a non-wartime emergency was ever warranted, it was for the outbreak of the then-novel coronavirus in early 2020. The orders gave vital flexibility amid uncertainty about the nature and potency of the virus, and rushed resources to develop, then deploy, vaccines and treatments.
拜登总统于1月30日决定于今年春天正式结束新冠肺炎国家紧急状态，单方面放弃行政部门三年来拥有的特殊权力，这是一个值得庆祝的里程碑。如果说有必要宣布非战时紧急状态，那是因为2020年初爆发了新型冠状病毒疫情。在这种病毒的性质和效力尚不确定的情况下，国家紧急状态给予了政府至关重要的灵活性，并使政府能迅速投入资源开发、然后部署疫苗和治疗方法。
But the time has come — indeed, the time is overdue — to go back to the regular order of implementing sweeping new programs and policies. That requires, with what should be rare exceptions, agreement of the executive and legislative branches. The administration has dubiously used the continuing “emergency” to engineer roughly $400 billion in student loan forgiveness by executive fiat. The Supreme Court previously stopped the White House from using the emergency declaration to mandate that large employers require their workers to be vaccinated.
但现在是时候了——实际上，早就应该这样做了——回到实施全面新项目和新政策的正常秩序。正常秩序需要行政和立法部门的一致同意，这种情况应该很少有例外。令人怀疑的是，拜登政府利用持续的“紧急状态”，通过行政命令来免除大约4000亿美元的学生贷款。最高法院此前曾阻止白宫使用紧急声明来强制大雇主要求其员工接种疫苗。
Only the most urgent situations should be designated national emergencies, but they’ve become troublesomely routine. A total of 136 laws give the president special powers when he declares a national emergency. The Brennan Center for Justice says there are 42 declared national emergencies currently in effect. The oldest still on the books stems from the Iranian revolution in 1979, which provides the legal basis for many U.S. sanctions. The emergency declared after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, remains in effect. There is no record that the national emergency declared by President Barack Obama in 2009 with respect to the H1N1 influenza pandemic was ever officially terminated, according to the Brennan Center.
只有最紧急的情况才应该被指定为国家紧急状态，但它们已经成为令人烦恼的例行公事。当总统宣布国家进入紧急状态时，共有136条法律赋予他特殊的权力。布伦南司法中心表示，目前有42起国家紧急事件正在生效。历史最悠久的是1979年的伊朗革命，它为美国的许多制裁提供了法律依据。2001年9月11日恐怖袭击后宣布的紧急状态仍然有效。布伦南中心表示，没有记录表明，2009年奥巴马总统宣布的H1N1流感大流行国家紧急状态被正式终止。
Most egregious was President Donald Trump’s 2019 declaration of a national emergency to divert military funding to build a border wall for which Congress, which the Constitution gives the power of the purse, refused to appropriate money. Mr. Biden rescinded that emergency on his first day in office.
最令人震惊的是唐纳德·特朗普总统2019年宣布国家进入紧急状态，将军事资金用于修建边境墙，因为宪法赋予财政管理权的国会拒绝为其修墙拨款。拜登上任第一天就取消了这一紧急状态。
We’ve long argued the legislative branch has surrendered too much power to the executive and should claw it back, rather than forcing the courts to referee every dispute about how an authority is used. One idea would be to pass a law stating that all emergency declarations would expire automatically after three or six months, whereupon Congress would need to vote upon any proposed extension. It is time for both parties to recognize that governing via endless crises — even when they are employed to implement broadly popular policies that win plaudits from key political constituencies — subverts our system of constitutional government.
长期以来，我们一直认为立法部门已经向行政部门交出了太多的权力，应该收回这些权力，而不是强迫法院来仲裁有关权力如何使用的每一场纠纷。一种想法是通过一项法律，规定所有紧急状态声明将在三到六个月后自动到期，届时国会将需要对任何延期提议进行投票。现在是时候让两党认识到，通过无休止的危机来治理国家——即使他们被用来实施广受欢迎的政策，赢得关键政治选民的喝彩——也会颠覆我们的宪政体制。