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Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

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Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#381

Post by throwup238 »

bell-cot wrote: post #93

Before proclaiming that this outcome is horrible - Please consider that the Good Guys (your opinion) might not win the election in November. And that you might not want the courts auto-deferring to all the plausible-ish interpretations of ambiguous laws which gov't agency officials appointed by the Bad Guys (your opinion) might suddenly add the Official Agency Interpretations next year.

The Chevron deference case is one of the most cited court cases in the US and this decision threatens to throw Federal regulations into chaos as a bunch of Districts redecide decades of precedent. Since the appeals courts can reach contradictory decisions and keep them in play until the Supreme Court makes a conclusive decision, any company at the national level will have to figure out how to square that circle.

Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, this is going to cause a practical mess just like the Dobbs decision, except Chevron deference impacts every area of federal regulation.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#382

Post by consumer451 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #313
brettcvz wrote: post #71

This seems like the judicial branch just voted to give itself substantially more power. Are there any checks against this? Or can justices just keep granting themselves more powers and invalidating any restraints?

It's worth reading the judgement itself. The court has indeed voted to give the courts more power, but not on the basis of nothing. It did so because it views it as taking back powers that were incorrectly/lazily given up without basis in what Congress wanted. From the judgement: Congress in 1946 enacted the APA [Administrative Procedures Act] “as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried th…

As a legal dilettante I have some questions: What does this decision mean for court caseload going forward? If it will increase, how much? Is there budget for that?

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#383

Post by Cody-99 »

biomcgary wrote: post #369
aport wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would much rather unelected bureaucrat scientists decide how to implement the intent and application of laws than congress.

Regulations that automatically expire after some time period but require Congress to given an up/down vote would give the regulations greater legitimacy in a democratic system. Congress doesn't need the expertise to write the regulations. The elected Congress could just vote to pass the regulations as laws. Congress just doesn't want to be on the hook for the regulations, which is part of the reason why they hand off…

Congress already has that power now though..? The congressional review act lets congress review and vote on new regulations issued by government agencies. Lots of people in this thread seem to be missing the fact that congress already approves of these agency rules. If they didn't they would have blocked them under the CRA.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#384

Post by ImJamal »

neaden wrote: post #3

This court continues to make decisions that might be defensible if you were making them for the first time, but go against decades of precedent in which time many laws have been written on the assumption that things would work a certain way. For a group that claims to be holding to tradition they sure are willing to throw things into chaos.

How long as separate but equal a precedent? How many laws were made with that assumption in mind?

Just because something is a precedent doesn't mean it is good or should continue.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#385

Post by ZoomerCretin »

mike_hearn wrote: post #313
brettcvz wrote: post #71

This seems like the judicial branch just voted to give itself substantially more power. Are there any checks against this? Or can justices just keep granting themselves more powers and invalidating any restraints?

It's worth reading the judgement itself. The court has indeed voted to give the courts more power, but not on the basis of nothing. It did so because it views it as taking back powers that were incorrectly/lazily given up without basis in what Congress wanted. From the judgement: Congress in 1946 enacted the APA [Administrative Procedures Act] “as a check upon administrators whose zeal might otherwise have carried th…

The constitution very explicitly grants Congress the right to strip jurisdiction from the federal courts.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C2-...

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#386

Post by lcnPylGDnU4H9OF »

rswail wrote: post #99

I'm impressed that they can so easily dispose of 40 years of law making by Congress that assumed that agencies would interpret the statutes and make rules for regulating their area of authority. Now Congress is going to have to specify every possible consequence of laws in the statutes, otherwise a judge will decide. So agencies will not have any power to actually regulate. Awesome logic work, but terrible legal thin…

> So agencies will not have any power to actually regulate.

This isn't accurate. Agencies will just need to work with Congress to help them write laws which make sense according to how the agency would like something to regulated.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#387

Post by free_bip »

bell-cot wrote: post #244
kergonath wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not a question of good guys and bad guys. It’s just that a system where the legislative branch micro-manages things like electrical safety in new homes to what you’re allowed to put in baby formula is completely unworkable. If “the bad guys” get into power, then the agency is still checked by the courts that are perfectly able to stop blatant overreach. OTOH, congress physically cannot keep abreast of the sta…

Currently, in the minds of much of the American electorate, it is good guys and bad guys. You are correct that the US Constitution is poorly suited to governing a nation of ~1/3 billion people in the modern world. Unfortunately, the current political environment make fixing things impossible.

> You are correct that the US Constitution is poorly suited to governing a nation of ~1/3 billion people in the modern world.

Which is exactly why this is such a terrible decision.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#388

Post by bombcar »

cthalupa wrote: post #220
agensaequivocum wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The constitution mandates that the courts interpret the law. Thomas and Gorsuch are right in their concurrences, allowing the executive branch to both enforce and interpret law is abhorrent to our constitution's proscribed separation of powers.

Except Chevron was just codification of the status quo that had existed since the founding of the country. Congress cannot be expected to craft every bit of law and regulation down to the finest detail, and the gridlock that has been congress over the past several decades should make it clear that it's practically impossible. The regulatory power of federal agencies has never been broad and without oversight from oth…

The whole point of the judgement is that the status quo continues.

Congress passes laws, the agencies implement them, if you disagree you go to court. All it's saying is that you don't have to go to the Supremes to get your disagreement to win.

Imagine a patent system where the judge could never throw out a patent, because the experts at the agency (patent office) had granted it, so it must be valid.

Re: Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine

#390

Post by alfalfasprout »

consumer451 wrote: post #43

From Justice Kagan's dissent on page 82: > This Court has long understood Chevron deference to reflect what Congress would want, and so to be rooted in a presumption of legislative intent. Congress knows that it does not—in fact cannot—write perfectly complete regulatory statutes... > It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other…

On the flip side-- congress often will pass regulation with the very intent to allow ambiguity so that the regulatory agency will have extreme latitude often against the will of the people.

Or a regulatory agency will grossly stretch their mandate to overstep what they are effectively allowed to regulate and interpret.

Since there effectively minimal judicial checks and balances against that behavior that's also not desirable either. Just look at the farcical interpretations from the ATF in recent years that have sent innocent folks to prison for having a completely non-functional design of a gun part on a business card to prison. Or classifying a shoe string as a machine gun. These folks have had little to no recourse in court due to the ATF's broad unchecked discretion.

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