I often find myself in debates with smart people – people I like – who don’t understand the distinction between the merits of a particular government policy and the question of whether the government has the power to enact that policy.  To pick a recent example, you may think that preventing hunters from killing bear cubs in Alaska is a great idea.  Whether the government – especially, the Executive Branch, acting without statutory authority – has the power to enact such a ban is a question that many would regard as beside the point.  Those who question the Executive’s power to protect bear cubs obviously hate bear cubs.

Based on the tenor of articles like this one in today’s Washington Post, the FAA’s drone registration rule is the Alaskan bear cub of the moment.  Stakeholders are livid at John Taylor for having the temerity to question authority.  A spokesman for AUVSI (an organization in which I have been a member), seems rather beside himself:

Why do we have restrictions? Because we don’t want a drone ingested into an aircraft engine,” said Brian Wynne, a licensed pilot and president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a leading industry group based in Arlington, Va.

Wynne said putting registration numbers on all aircraft should be seen as a basic safety requirement. But that was part of what was overturned by Taylor’s challenge.

“We have to have rules,” Wynne said.

I feel Mr. Wynne’s pain.  Really, I do.  Stakeholders who have invested so much in their drone businesses no doubt feel put upon by a regulatory regime that imposes high barriers to entry on them, while imposing very few restrictions on those who engage in the very same activity for personal pleasure.  A drone registration requirement for all seems only fair.

But, as Mr. Wynne said, “We have to have rules.” And first among those rules must be the rule of law.  Congress expressly prohibited the FAA from regulating model aircraft.  The FAA’s drone registration rule violated that unambiguous prohibition.

John Taylor was just the boy who pointed out the emperor’s lack of clothing.