The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned the Chevron rule, a 40-year precedent under which lower courts had to defer to regulatory agencies when interpreting the laws the agencies enforce.
April 2024 - "Separation of powers is a core concept of America's Constitution. In the Founders' scheme, Congress, the courts, and the executive are independent branches of government, with their own roles and duties, intended to check one another. But since 1984, the Supreme Court has hamstrung its own ability to act independently in the face of executive power. In Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the high court adopted a blanket presumption of deference to statutory interpretations put forth by regulatory agencies in any case where the statute was ambiguous, so long as the interpretation was reasonable.... In practice, the Chevron deference undermined the Court's independence, since it forced courts to just accept executive branch interpretations in many tough cases.
"The doctrine also creates perverse incentives for the other two branches. For example, by giving deference to agencies in ambiguous cases, it gave executive branch regulators incentive to hunt for ambiguities in order to expand their own power. This led to decades of executive overreach, as administrations used convoluted readings of statutes to pursue agendas Congress never imagined. By the same token, Chevron deference shifted the burden of making well-written and fully thought-out laws away from Congress. Empowering regulators meant that, at the margins, Congress had less reason to write clear, consensus-based legislation.
"The result, over 40 years, has been a shift away from the intended constitutional order, in which Congress writes laws, the executive branch implements them, and the courts rule independently on matters of dispute. We now live under an often dysfunctional system in which Congress is less inclined to compromise and legislate on tough issues, regulators are more inclined to take matters into their own hands, and courts have less power to tell executive branch officials when they have overreached. The system lends itself to politicized regulatory pingponging, as courts are generally required to defer to the differing and even dramatically opposed interpretations put forth by shifting Democratic and Republican administrations.
"This was what was at stake in January, when the Supreme Court heard oral arguments that put the legacy of Chevron on trial. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, a group of herring fishermen from New Jersey objected to a federal rule requiring them not only to host government monitors on their boats but to pay the cost of those monitors—about $700 a day. That requirement was based on the 2007 Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA), which does require some types of fishing operations to host and pay for government monitors. But the fishermen in this case weren't explicitly covered by that requirement, so when the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) decided to expand the purview of the MSA in order to cover a budget shortfall, the fishermen went to court."
Read more: https://reason.com/2024/03/07/scotus-takes-on-federal-regulators/
SCOTUS overturns Chevron decision, taking weight away from federal agency regulations | WKOW 27 NEWS | June 28, 2024:
The Supreme Court's Decision Overruling Chevron is Important— But Less so than You Might Think | Reason | Ilya Somin, Volokh Conspiracy:
June 28, 2024 - "Today's Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo overturns the important 1984 precedent of Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which required federal judges to defer to administrative agencies' interpretations of federal laws, so long as Congress has not addressed the issue in question, and the agency's view is 'reasonable.' It's an important reversal, and I think the Court was right to do it. Chief Justice John Roberts' majority opinion lays out a compelling critique of Chevron, including explaining why it should not be retained out of respect for precedent. But, contrary to the hopes of some and fears of others, today's ruling will not end the administrative state or even greatly reduce the amount of federal regulation....
"Despite the likely limited scope of its impact, I still think today's ruling is a valuable step. While it won't lead to large-scale deregulation, it can help strengthen the rule of law. It could also limit the aggrandizement of power by the executive. Liberals who lament Chevron's demise may be happier about it if Donald Trump returns to power and his appointees try to use statutory ambiguities to advance his ends....If Trump returns to power, do left-liberal Chevron fans believe his appointees will scrupulously 'follow the science' when they interpret statutes? Or will they have a political agenda that will usually trump (pun intended!) science when the two conflict? The answer seems pretty obvious, at least to me.
"The same question can be posed in reverse to the dwindling band of conservative defenders of Chevron. Even if they think GOP administrations will 'follow the science,' they probably don't have equal confidence in Democratic ones.
"Partisan and ideological bias aside, many issues handled by agencies are simply impossible to resolve through technical expertise alone. They also involve questions of values. And even the most expert of government planners have severe limits to their knowledge, which is one reason why it's usually best to rely on markets, which aggregate information better than planners do."
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