U.S. Supreme Court reverses precedent that empowered federal agencies • Colorado Newsline

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, the courts had abdicated their interpretive role and left the matter in the hands of the agency.

But they shouldn’t do that, he added. Judges should use their own legal reasoning to make the right decision.

“Instead, courts understand that such statutes, no matter how impenetrable, are — in fact, must — have a single, best meaning.”

1984 ruling overturned

The decision overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that said courts must rely on federal agencies’ expertise when considering legal challenges to regulations. The 1984 ruling significantly raised the bar for striking down agency regulations.

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, three liberals on the Court — not including Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in one of the cases after she withdrew because she had heard the case as an appellate court judge before joining the Supreme Court — said the majority erred by misunderstanding the roles of the three branches government.

Congress knows it cannot “write perfectly complete regulatory statutes,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in a dissenting opinion. The interpretation of these statutes is obvious, and Congress typically prefers a “responsible agency” to a court.

Agencies have more political responsibility and have more technical expertise in a given case than courts, she wrote.

“When it all comes together, deference to the agency seems almost the obvious choice,” Kagan wrote.

Kagan criticized the decision, calling it an attempt by the judicial branch to seize power at the expense of the agency’s experts.

“The principle of judicial humility is giving way to the principle of judicial pride,” she wrote. “In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive authority over every open issue – no matter how expert-based or policy-laden – including the importance of regulatory law.”

Liberals see weakening of security

Liberal groups and elected Democrats feared the reversal would strip agencies of their authority to establish strong regulatory safeguards across a broad range of issues, especially climate and environmental rules.

“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 government plays in ensuring the health and safety of our families and the integrity of our markets could be undermined in this case,” she said.

The ruling strips the authority of experts who deal with a specific subject of a federal regulation — 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 a federal criminal justice authority, Weintraub said.

U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who ranks on the U.S. House of Representatives 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 power grab, 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 withdrawal

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

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

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

“Congress has avoided our legal responsibilities for too long, and today’s ruling restores our rulemaking and regulatory authority,” Westerman said in a written statement. “We will no longer allow federal agencies to fill in the details when it comes to the policies we enact.”

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

“The Court has taken a major step to end the unlawful power grabs by federal agencies and preserve the separation of powers,” Martinez said in a statement distributed by the conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. “In the future, judges will be required to faithfully, impartially, and independently interpret the law, without deference to the government.”

No plans to reopen old cases

In the majority opinion, Roberts said the court had no plans to reopen the Chevron cases “despite our change in 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 shift away from deference to agency decision-making, demanding more explicit instructions from Congress.

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

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

Congress sometimes explicitly directs agencies to craft regulations, and those rules will still be held to the same standards in 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.

“Chevron’s rollback will simply mean that the agencies will not get the benefit of the doubt in a tie,” Wolff said. “They have to come to court and convince it that they understand the statute better.”

Fishing operators

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

Fishing industry representatives say the rule forces them to hand over up to 20% of their profits.

After the lower court cited Chevron’s opinion and ruled in NOAA’s favor, oral arguments in the Supreme Court in January focused almost entirely on Chevron.