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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

#541

Post by consumer451 »

mike_hearn wrote: post #416
consumer451 wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It doesn't mean anything for court caseload. There seem to be a lot of posts in this thread that are misinterpreting what the judgement means. Here's what I understood from reading it: • This case does not affect Congress' ability to delegate defined lawmaking powers to the executive. Congress can continue to delegate whatever they want. • It will therefore not have any impact on the speed with which the US governmen…

Another user has raised the other side of my question, while exaggerated, is this more accurate as to what will happen than the thrust of my original question? Do we need to increase the budget for Congressional aides?

> The Roberts Court just decided to increase Congress' workload 100000x

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40823343

meta: this has been one of the most interesting and educational threads in recent times. Three cheers for HN.

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

#542

Post by chasd00 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #162
brodouevencode wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if something that is seen as a bad idea should be kept in place because "that's the way we've always done it"?

There should be a very high threshold for "we're pressing the reset button on a regulatory infrastructure built on decades worth of precedent, #yolo!", yes.

> There should be a very high threshold..

there's no higher threshold in the US than a US Supreme Court decision

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

#543

Post by malcolmgreaves »

lolinder wrote: post #406
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…

To put it a bit differently: Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades. The executive branch has filled in by interpreting these laws very loosely in order to adapt to the changing situation and—importantly—to adapt to changing presidencies. That last part is the single biggest problem with the administrative regime as it has stood hitherto: it means that almost everything that happens in the fed…

You have an incorrect understanding here. What was occurring now was not "government by administrative rule" as you put it. It was government by rules passed by Congress. Congress explicitly defers on specifics of some laws to agencies because it is not qualified to provide specifics. Agencies, staffed with experts, are capable of making fine-grained decisions on how to implement laws that Congress passes.

This SCOUTS ruling means there will be *significantly more* ambiguity and instability in the federal government. *More* things will be up for destabilization by Republican activist judges. The outcome will be a government that works less efficiently and effectively.

This is the Republican play book: purposely make the government worse, distract with absurd claims, then come election time lie and say that the Democrats want to make the Republican's version of bad government even more expansive. Every four to eight years, the Democrats clean up the Republican's mess. Government gets better. Then Republicans lie again and the cycle repeats.

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

#544

Post by PeterCorless »

pstuart wrote: post #504
lolinder wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it a bit differently: Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades. The executive branch has filled in by interpreting these laws very loosely in order to adapt to the changing situation and—importantly—to adapt to changing presidencies. That last part is the single biggest problem with the administrative regime as it has stood hitherto: it means that almost everything that happens in the fed…

> Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades For those in the sway of the Federalist Society, that's a feature, not a bug.

It is ironic in the extreme that the "Federalist" Society want power to devolve to the states. Jefferson is snickering in the grave.

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

#545

Post by bumby »

mike_hearn wrote: post #522
bumby wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This feels like one of those topics that may sound ok in theory, but breaks down in practice. The implication is that the judges must be well-versed enough in any domain brought before them to interpret the laws effectively. This seems like a tall order for nine people. We have already seen this trouble in expecting strict interpretations regarding tech. To be fair, Congress has the same problem. I believe that was i…

The Supreme Court doesn't resolve cases directly, they resolve questions of law for lower courts to take into account. They are meant to be experts in law, so there's no problem there. The lower courts can't be experts in everything, but bear in mind two things: 1. Courts have expert witnesses and a whole system around how they are called, challenged and questioned. Judges are trained to learn what they need to know…

It reads like it creates a deliberate impasse. The opinion states that ambiguities in law no longer implicitly give agencies discretion. That means Congress has to write unambiguous laws. But my original post acknowledges they cannot. Based on this ruling, it seems like anything other than a perfect, airtight law means it's effectively non-enforceable. So where does that leave us? It seems like the SC has laid the table for constant rules-lawyering by corporations to get whatever they want. In other words, they've let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

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

#546

Post by jmyeet »

There's some interesting history here [1].

Anne Gorsuch Burford was appointed by Reagan to head the EPA. She beleived federal regulations had become too onerous and the power of the administrative state had become too large. It was her mission to roll back environmental protections and gut the agency through reorganizations and layoffs.

This did not go well. She ultimately resigned over a scandal where she withheld funds to help clean up a site to hurt a Senate campaign and lied about it. The Reagan administration eventually discovered the lie and I believe she resigned to avoid proseecution.

The EPA under Reagan tried to limit clean air responsibilities by narrowly scoping what a "source" of static pollution is. The Natural Resources Defence Council ("NRDC") sued, in a case called Natural Resources Defence Council v. Gorsuch [2].

Interestingly, the trial court judge was future Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Court ruled against the EPA. That case was appealed to the Supreme Court as Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc [3].

The Supreme Court reversed this decision and said that the EPA had the broad authority to define what a "source" was as policy and this become the basis for what we now called (or used to call) "Chevron deference". It's worth noting that SCOTUS at the time made what was then a pro-corporate and anti-environmental decision.

Former EPA Anne Gorsuch Burford's son is Neil Gorsuch, current Supreme Court justice who voted to overturn Chevron deference and essentially avenge his mother, continuing her anti-government legacy.

[1]: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/07/07/why-neil-gorsu...

[2]: https://casetext.com/case/natural-resources-defense-council-...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natura....

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

#547

Post by _DeadFred_ »

The conservatives in for some crazy awakenings with this. So many federal law enforcement practices that are super shady get handwaved away under the Chevron doctrine. I think this was a bad ruling as far as running a functional country goes, but a lot of shady stuff the government got away with is finally going to get stopped.

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

#548

Post by waveBidder »

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote: post #386
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.

except agencies need to be able to work on timelines faster than once a decade

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

#549

Post by datavirtue »

mywittyname wrote: post #526
lolinder wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it a bit differently: Congress has not been able to pass substantial laws in decades. The executive branch has filled in by interpreting these laws very loosely in order to adapt to the changing situation and—importantly—to adapt to changing presidencies. That last part is the single biggest problem with the administrative regime as it has stood hitherto: it means that almost everything that happens in the fed…

> The existing system of administrative rules absolutely sucks for stability. This new system is even worse. At some point, the Judiciary will make a poor ruling. Perhaps this ruling is impossible to hold to, but maybe the executive branch decides to usurp the court of its own volition. Then what? The checks and balances system of our government only works when everyone plays nice. But if push comes to shove, then th…

Too much importance and deferral has been granted to the courts. It was a mistake to imbue that institution as the "third branch of government." I came to view that take as propaganda when I was younger and have soured increasingly more on the SCOTUS over these last few decades. I view that court as very dangerous and in need of being smacked down a peg or two.

Congress has ultimate authority, period. So the SCOTUS running amok is a very bad look and smell.

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

#550

Post by slackfan »

gamblor956 wrote: post #414
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…

The Roberts Court just decided to increase Congress' workload 100000x. This is one of those rulings that is going to get overturned in a few decades when it turns out to be completely unworkable to have Congress be subject-matter experts in thousands of areas. In 10 years when people wonder why their rivers are glowing green and everything in the ground is dying and there's a weird smell in the air, and corporations…

100000 * 0 is still 0
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