US Supreme Court Conservatives Flex Muscles to Restrict Regulatory Agencies Author: Reuters

Author: Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters): The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has trained its legal muscle this term to rein in federal regulators, cementing its key role in long-standing efforts by business interests and others to smear the “administrative state.”

The court’s sweeping rulings have curtailed the federal government’s power to regulate everything from stock trading to environmental pollution, even as the justices decided not to further restrict abortion rights or expand gun rights under the U.S. Constitution’s Second Amendment before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

The court’s nine-month term ends on Monday. On Friday, the court issued a major ruling with six conservative justices in the majority and three liberals dissenting that overturned a 1984 precedent establishing an important administrative law principle known as “ Chevron (NYSE:) deference.” The doctrine called for courts to show deference to government agencies’ interpretations of federal law.

The outcome of this case, which has been eagerly awaited by business and conservative communities, will make it easier for judges to challenge the actions of U.S. agencies, making it possible to challenge federal regulations such as air and water quality, food and drug safety, employment standards and investor protections.

On Thursday, the conservative majority ruled that fraud enforcement actions, which are conducted internally by the Securities and Exchange Commission rather than in federal courts, violate the right to a trial by jury under the Constitution’s Seventh Amendment. The ruling could impact other agencies, making it more difficult for them to enforce the rules as well.

“I would say this area of ​​the law is the clearest right now, where the difference between the court’s judges is 6 to 3,” said lawyer Misha Tseytlin, who has argued cases at the court.

Friday’s Chevron deferment ruling “is the most important administrative decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in decades,” Tseytlin added. “This decision will fundamentally change not only agency rulemaking disputes but also how agencies approach their rulemaking processes.”

The court has curbed agency authority in other cases in recent years, including limiting the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to cap greenhouse gas emissions from power plants in 2022. In that case, the court adopted the so-called “leading questions” doctrine favored by conservatives, giving justices broad discretion to invalidate executive branch actions unless Congress has expressly authorized them.

As Nicole Saharsky, also a Supreme Court lawyer, said, the conservative majority “continues to rank limiting the powers of administrative agencies as one of their highest priorities.”

“From the principal questions doctrine to the limitations on the agency’s adjudicatory authority to the elimination of the Chevron deference rule, the court has made it much easier for regulated parties to challenge agency actions,” Saharsky added.

Lawyers have debated the extent to which these rulings undermine the powers of regulators.

Abner Greene, a Fordham University School of Law expert in regulatory law, said the court took “another step toward dismantling the federal regulatory state” by limiting Congress’ ability to use the agency to “develop federal policy over time and in response to complex circumstances.” “.

George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, however, said that while it is clear that judges are “suspicious of regulatory bureaucracy,” “we are very far from destroying the administrative state or even ending all judicial deference to it.”

In May, the court upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism in a lawsuit brought by the payday loan industry that posed an existential threat to the agency. The justices are expected to hear another case Monday involving a North Dakota grocery store’s challenge to the Federal Reserve’s debit card swipe fee regulations.

GUN AND ABORTION

Two important cases on their docket gave the court’s conservatives a chance to further restrict access to abortion. The justices declined to do so, but they also did not resolve the underlying legal issues, leaving the door open for those issues to return to the Supreme Court in the future.

One case involved efforts by anti-abortion groups and doctors to restrict access to the abortion pill. The justices found that the particular challengers lacked the legal standing necessary to pursue the case. The court also declined to rule on another issue involving the enforcement of Idaho’s strict ban on abortions in medical emergencies, instead dismissing the case.

The Court’s conservative majority in 2022 overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a constitutional right to abortion and legalized the procedure nationwide.

Again, the justices declined to further expand gun rights under the Constitution’s Second Amendment right to “keep and bear arms” in a case challenging a federal law that bars domestic violence perpetrators from possessing guns.

The ruling suggested limitations to a new test the court announced in a 2022 ruling that made it easier to challenge gun control measures by requiring they comply with the country’s “historical tradition of firearms regulation.”

Somin said the abortion cases involving the term show that for many conservative judges “it’s clear that their view is not necessarily that they want to restrict abortion at all costs.”

He also noted that in the home-gun case, the challenger did not come across as a compassionate person. “Conservative judges have been reluctant to acknowledge that the right is going so far as to even take this case, but that doesn’t tell us much about what they would do in less extreme cases,” Somin said.

In another gun case that didn’t involve the Second Amendment, the court found unlawful a federal regulation banning “bump” devices that allow semi-automatic weapons to fire as quickly as machine guns, suggesting Congress step in instead.

The court already has another firearms-related case scheduled to be heard during its next term, which begins in October, involving a challenge to a federal regulation of homemade “ghost guns.” As early as Monday, the court may address other challenges to the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution regarding the ban on possession of weapons by minor criminals and users of illegal drugs, as well as assault rifles.

In another major case scheduled for next term, the justices will have to rule on the legality of Republican-backed state bans on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors in a case involving a state law in Tennessee.