US Supreme Court changes precedent that authorized federal agencies – #Colorado Newsline – Coyote Gulch

June 28, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Friday’s precedent that for decades limited the judiciary’s power to strike executive branch regulations, in a decision immediately criticized for potentially undermining decisions by scientists and agency experts.

The 6-3 and 6-2 decisions in two cases brought by fishing operators in New Jersey and Rhode Island challenged a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule and invalidated a rule known as the Chevron deference rule.

This precedent gave federal agencies broad authority to resolve any ambiguities left by Congress in federal statutes.

The court’s six conservative justices argued that courts “routinely face statutory ambiguities” that have nothing to do with regulators’ authority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

“Of course, where there is statutory ambiguity in such a case, that ambiguity is not delegated to anyone, and the court is in no way relieved of its obligation to interpret the statute independently,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts wrote that under 40 years of precedent, courts abdicated their interpretive role and placed the matter in the agency’s hands.

But they shouldn’t, he added. To make a sound decision, judges should use their own legal reasoning.

“Instead, courts understand that such statutes, no matter how impenetrable, have – in fact, must – have one best meaning.”

The 1984 ruling was overturned

This decision overturned the Supreme Court’s 1984 ruling, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which held that courts must rely on the expertise of federal agencies when considering legal challenges to a rule. The 1984 ruling significantly raised the bar for overturning the agency rule.

The precedent has strengthened executive power under bipartisan presidential administrations, but experts fear its reversal would strip agencies of the power to set regulatory protections on a wide range of issues, including clean air and public health.

In a dissenting opinion, the court’s three liberals (excluding Judge Ketanja Brown Jackson in one of the cases, who recused herself from the case because she had heard it as an appellate judge before joining the Supreme Court) said the majority erred by misunderstanding the role of the three branches of government.

Congress knows it cannot “write perfectly complete regulatory statutes,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent. The interpretation of these statutes is obvious, and Congress usually prefers a “responsible institution” rather than a court.

Agencies are more politically responsible and have more technical expertise on issues than courts, she wrote.

“Add it all up, and it turns out that deference to agency is almost the obvious choice,” Kagan wrote.

Kagan then criticized the decision as a judicial power grab at the expense of the agency’s experts.

“The principle of judicial humility is giving way to the principle of judicial hubris,” she wrote. “In one fell swoop, today’s majority arrogates to itself exclusive authority over every open question—no matter how expert-based or politically charged—involving the meaning of regulatory law.”

Liberals see security weakening

Liberal groups and elected Democrats worried that reversing the decision would strip agencies of the power to enact strong regulatory protections across a broad range of issues, especially climate and environmental regulations.

“It weakens our government’s ability to protect us from the climate crisis, threats to worker safety, public health, clean air and water, safe medicines and food, a healthy financial system and more,” Manish Bapna, president of the environmental group NRDC Action Fund, wrote in statement.

“Today’s reckless but unsurprising decision by this far-right court is a triumph for corporate polluters who seek to dismantle sensible regulations that protect clean air, clean water and a livable climate future,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the human rights group Food & Water, said in a statement Watch.

Rachel Weintraub, executive director of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, a group that advocates for strong federal regulation, said in an interview before the decision was announced that Chevron’s compliance had led to a raft of regulations on consumer safety, labor, environmental protection and other issues.

“The important role that government plays in ensuring the health and safety of our families and the integrity of our markets could be undermined here,” she said.

The ruling, Weintraub said, takes authority away from experts on a specific subject covered by federal regulations — such as traffic engineers at the Department of Transportation, disease experts at the Food and Drug Administration or scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency — and gives it to the federal judiciary.

U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who is the ranking member of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, called the ruling a gift to polluters and the fossil fuel industry.

“For 40 years, Congress has passed laws with the understanding that it is up to the courts to interpret those laws, but their implementation is in the hands of career science and policy experts in our federal agencies,” Grijalva said in a statement.

“But now, thanks to this extremist takeover, our most basic protections will be available to individual judges — many of whom are far-right ideologues — regardless of their lack of expertise or political agenda.”

Conservatives praise the withdrawal

Congressional Republicans and conservative activists praised the decision for weakening state administration, saying it would restore power to the legislature.

“The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power to make laws,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said in a statement. “After four decades of pandering to Chevron, the Supreme Court made clear today that our system of government leaves no room for an unelected bureaucracy to seize this power for itself.”

Rep. Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said Friday’s ruling should prompt Congress to write stricter laws.

“Congress has evaded our legal responsibilities for too long, and today’s ruling gives us back control over our rulemaking and regulatory authority,” Westerman said in a written statement. “We will no longer allow federal agencies to fill in the details of the policies we enact.”

Roman Martinez, a lawyer representing Rhode Island fishing operators, called the ruling “a victory for individual liberty and the Constitution.”

“The court took an important step to stop the unlawful capture of power by federal agencies and preserve the separation of powers,” Martinez said in a statement released by the conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. “In the future, judges will have to interpret the law faithfully, impartially and independently, regardless of government.”

There are no plans to reopen old cases

In the majority opinion, Roberts said the court has no plans to reopen the Chevron cases “despite the change in our interpretive methodology.”

Even before Friday’s decision, the court had been using Chevron less often. During oral arguments, Roberts cited a study that found the court had cited the precedent sparingly over the past 14 years.

The court’s conservative majority has shown a willingness to move away from deference to agency decisions and toward clearer instructions from Congress.

For example, in the 2022 case West Virginia v. EPA, the court ruled that the EPA lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

Daniel Wolff, an administrative law attorney at Crowell & Moring, downplayed the impact the ruling would have on the administrative state.

Congress sometimes expressly directs agencies to create regulations, and those regulations will be held to the same standards by which they were reasonably written, Wolff said in an interview before the decision.

In his opinion, principles based on solid legal and statutory foundations will survive for both standards.

“Putting out Chevron will simply mean that agencies won’t get the benefit of the doubt in the event of a tie,” Wolff said. “They have to come to the court and convince the court that they understand the statute better.”

Fishing operators

The cases, which were decided Friday, were brought by New Jersey and Rhode Island herring fishery operators who challenged a NOAA rule requiring operators to pay federal monitors who regularly join fishing boats to ensure compliance with federal regulations.

Fishing operators say the rule forced them to hand over up to 20% of their profits.

After a lower court relied on Chevron’s deference in ruling in NOAA’s favor, oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January focused almost exclusively on Chevron.