The US Supreme Court attacks federal regulation of corporate interests

In a long-awaited and deeply reactionary ruling released Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned 40 years of precedent to weaken federal regulation of corporations and banks on a wide range of issues, including public health, worker safety, wage and hour standards, environmental policy, abortion and birth control, consumer rights, food and drug standards, and business oversight.

In making a decision in favour of the plaintiff in Loper Bright Enterprises v. RaimondoChief Justice John Roberts specifically wrote that “Chevron has been repealed,” referring to the so-called “chevron deference” doctrine under the 1984 Act. Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council ruling. The decision held that courts have an obligation to defer to federal regulatory agencies to interpret regulations that Congress left vague, recognizing the scientific expertise of those agencies.

Roberts wrote, “The agencies have no special authority to resolve statutory ambiguities. The courts do.” This amounts to an open invitation to corporate lobbyists and special interest groups to flood the courts with challenges to government regulations that cut across their profit interests, regardless of the cost to the health and welfare of the public. It also aims to make it more difficult to implement new regulations by requiring them to be sanctioned by legislative and judicial review.

Roberts was joined by the rest of the court’s six-justice right-wing majority: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Three moderates — Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Justice Elena Kagan — dissented, and Sotomayor and Brown Jackson joined Kagan’s separate opinion.

The Supreme Court in its composition from June 30, 2022 to the present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Photo: Fred Schilling, Høyesterett USA collection)

The court considered Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo along with an almost identical case, Relentless v. Department of CommerceBoth cases involved a 1976 federal law that requires herring vessels to carry federal observers on board to collect data to prevent overfishing.

Under a 2020 regulation interpreting the law, companies that owned the boats were required not only to transport observers but also to pay $700 a day to supervise them. Fishing companies in New Jersey and Rhode Island sued, arguing that the 1976 act did not authorize the National Marine Fisheries Service to impose the fee.

The case was financed and brought to court by two interest groups, the Cause of Action Institute and the New Civil Liberties Alliance, both affiliated with a network of foundations and groups funded by right-wing oil tycoon Charles Koch (estimated net worth: $64.9 billion). All lower courts, including the D.C. Court of Appeals, have relied on Article Chevron precedent, ruled as expected, in favor of the government and against the plaintiffs. This paved the way for the right-wing majority on the Supreme Court to take up the case and use it to overturn it Chevron.

According to New York Times, Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council is one of the most frequently cited precedents in American law, forming the basis for 70 Supreme Court decisions and approximately 17,000 lower court decisions. The Supreme Court has already overturned major precedents in each of the last three terms: on abortion in 2022, on affirmative action in 2023, and now on the powers of administrative agencies.

The court, unelected, with appointed judges who serve life terms, epitomizes the deeply undemocratic nature of so-called “American democracy.” Its most openly fascist members, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are both deeply implicated in Donald Trump’s January 6, 2021, coup attempt. They are also the most corrupt, taking the first and third largest amounts of bribes from right-wing corporate billionaires on the court, which Fix the Court reports has received a combined $3 million in gifts over the past two decades. Thomas, a senior judge, is responsible for $2.4 million of that total based on documented bribes alone.

The destruction of federal oversight of business and the destruction of regulatory constraints on the profit-making and enrichment of the corporate elite are part of an ongoing and accelerating social counter-revolution. Essentially, the legal and governmental superstructure of capitalism, particularly in the United States, is being adapted to the underlying oligarchic nature of the economy. Previous reforms, linked to the mass struggles of the working class and in themselves limited and highly insufficient, are rejected in line with the increasingly parasitic nature of the American capitalist economy and its domination by huge blocs of capital.

Driven by the loss of its global industrial dominance and massive debt, the crisis-ridden American ruling class is turning increasingly ruthlessly towards global imperialist war and plunder abroad, as well as class war and dictatorship against its main enemy, the American working class.

as The World Socialism Website In its 2024 New Year Statement, the Editorial Board explained:

The United States is home to the largest concentration of billionaires in the world, whose combined wealth, according to Americans for Tax Fairness, rose to $5.2 trillion in November 2023, the highest amount ever recorded. In the third quarter of 2023, the richest 10 percent of Americans owned two-thirds of total wealth, while the poorest half owned only 2.6 percent.

The scale of resources controlled by giant banks and financial institutions is even greater. JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the world, controls assets worth $3.7 trillion, which is more than the GDP of the United Kingdom. Private equity firms Vanguard and BlackRock control assets worth a combined $17.1 trillion. Behind the crumbling façade of a two-party system, the American oligarchy exercises dictatorial power over society.

Without trying to hide my enthusiasm, “Wall Street” daily announced that Friday’s Supreme Court ruling was invalidated Chevron in only superlatives:

The Supreme Court struck down a 40-year-old federal regulatory framework, expanding the power of federal judges to overturn agency decisions on environmental, consumer and workplace safety policies, among other things…

While seemingly neutral, in practice the decision offers another tool to business interests seeking conservative federal courts to block environmental, consumer or workplace safety regulations they deem too costly.

On the other hand, the American Public Health Association and the American Cancer Society issued a joint statement on Friday, saying:

We anticipate that today’s ruling will cause significant disruptions to publicly funded health insurance programs, the stability of this country’s health care and food and drug review systems, and the health and well-being of the patients and consumers we serve.

Stephen Hall, legal director of Better Markets, which is calling for tighter regulation, said:

This decision threatens to return the United States to the situation of the 1910s, when the government had very limited ability to protect the health, safety and welfare of Americans.

Two other rulings released last week highlight the Supreme Court’s pro-corporate, anti-social agenda of attacking government regulatory powers. On Thursday, a right-wing majority overturned the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) ability to enforce its financial market rules through internal tribunals before expert administrative judges. Instead, the court ruled, the SEC had to sue the accused infringers in federal court before a jury.

That same day, the court voted 5-4 to halt an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) initiative to reduce smog-causing pollution from power plants and factories that spills across state lines. The court sided with states, trade associations and companies that had asked to halt the agency’s “good neighbor” plan while they challenge it in a lower court.