Supreme Court overturns 40-year-old "Chevron deference" doctrine • Hacker News Board

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

#791

Post by kelnos » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:20 PM UTC

s1k3s wrote: post #735

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #727

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's exactly how it works. The US Supreme Court can rule a law unconstitutional, and that's that.

So basically it's the same as here, the supreme court (which is appointed, not elected) has power over elected officials? (Because they can decide what is constitutional or not) Edit: I have more questions but for some reason I can't reply to your replies :(

Right. But the elected officials can vote to remove members of the supreme court (or federal judges in general), though the bar for doing so is set very high. And the supreme court can't remove elected officials. So the supreme court's power over elected officials is not absolute.

The idea in US constitutional law is one of balance: we have three branches of government, and each are granted powers that can act as a check on the powers of the others. It's far from perfect in practice, but the intent is good, I think.

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

#792

Post by autoexec » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:25 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #715

throw0101b wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congress skirted their duties for 40 years. Delegation dates back to (at least) the early 1900s: > Since 1935, the Court has not struck down a delegation to an administrative agency.15 Rather, the Court has approved, without deviation, Congress's ability to delegate power under broad standards.16 The Court has upheld, for example, delegations to administrative agencies to determine excessive profits during wartime,…

This is not about delegation. This is about interpretation of the limits of delegated power. Under Chevron the executive agencies decided that without check. Before Chevron and after Raimondo it's the courts that decide. The 40 years of Chevron were an aberration.

> Under Chevron the executive agencies decided that without check.

That isn't even close to being the truth. Under Chevron congress was always free to pass statutes as detailed as they want to avoid the kind of ambiguities that would even apply to Chevron in the first place, and judges have always had the oversight to ensure that an agency's interpretation was a "permissible construction of the statute".

Those are two literal checks. I have no idea where you ever got the idea that executive agencies were "without check" but that is just plainly wrong.

"First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute . . . Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute."

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

#793

Post by oceanplexian » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:25 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #676

VincentEvans wrote: post #664

Congress can actually legislate the right of agencies to interpret the gaps in the laws back into effect - by passing a law that explicitly gives agencies this power. Just like congress can legislate abortion laws rather than leaving it to judicial precedence. Fundamentally there’s nothing wrong with the position of supreme court to push the responsibility of lawmaking back on congress.

> Congress can actually legislate the right of agencies to interpret the gaps in the laws back into effect - by passing a law that explicitly gives agencies this power. Congress can't actually legislate anything while it's held hostage by obstructionists and there's effectively zero chance that a bunch of republicans who want to dismantle the already inadequate regulations that keep entire communities from being pois…

> Congress can't actually legislate anything while it's held hostage by obstructionists

That’s a feature, not a bug.

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

#794

Post by ytpete » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:27 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #715

throw0101b wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congress skirted their duties for 40 years. Delegation dates back to (at least) the early 1900s: > Since 1935, the Court has not struck down a delegation to an administrative agency.15 Rather, the Court has approved, without deviation, Congress's ability to delegate power under broad standards.16 The Court has upheld, for example, delegations to administrative agencies to determine excessive profits during wartime,…

This is not about delegation. This is about interpretation of the limits of delegated power. Under Chevron the executive agencies decided that without check. Before Chevron and after Raimondo it's the courts that decide. The 40 years of Chevron were an aberration.

It wasn't really "without check" though, was it? Courts could still rule that an agency exceeded its authority, it's just that Chevron meant the courts had to give deference to the agency's interpretation if Congress left the law ambiguous – and if the agency's interpretation was "reasonable."

So for example, if a law grants an agency power to regulate pollution emitted into the air, the agency already couldn't simply decide on its own that it was also able to regulate toxins dumped into rivers. But it could decide, if the law was vague on this point, whether "emitted into the air" included car exhaust vs. only stationary factories, for example.

The principle was that if Congress left a definition or meaning ambiguous in the law, it's implied that defining its precise meaning is part of the regulatory work they wanted the agency to do. Now, instead of that principle, the meaning of every ambiguity is open for litigation to select a different interpretation if the court finds it preferable to the agency's.

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

#795

Post by ytpete » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:30 PM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #749

jameshart wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Combined with yesterday’s ruling on administrative courts, this amounts to a massive increase in the role of the federal judiciary in the execution of government action. By 2040 the normal procedure every April will be, rather than filing a tax return, filing a suit in federal court disputing the right of the IRS to determine whether your income is actually ‘income’. Eighty federalist society AI lawbots will automati…

> Combined with yesterday’s ruling on administrative courts, this amounts to a massive increase in the role of the federal judiciary in the execution of government action. Sounds great. How we got to the point where executive-branch agencies were making rules with the force of law, binding upon the public with no judicial oversight, is a mystery to me, but it's good to see that the courts are taking their responsibil…

There's been plenty of judicial oversight – courts could always overturn any regulations or actions by an agency that the court decided were not based on a "reasonable" interpretation of the law passed by Congress.

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

#796

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:31 PM UTC

fzeroracer wrote: post #741

granzymes wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I liked this section of Justice Gorsuch's concurrence: > How bad is the problem? Take just one example. Brand X concerned a law regulating broadband internet services. There, the Court upheld an agency rule adopted by the administration of President George W. Bush because it was premised on a “reasonable” interpretation of the statute. Later, President Barack Obama’s administration rescinded the rule and replaced it…

But fundamentally, how is this different than what the Supreme Court does? The Supreme Court interprets the constitution and its meaning as it relates to whether or not a law is constitutional. The overturning of Roe v Wade is the direct result of the current court saying 'actually, the way we previously interpreted the constitution was wrong'. We've gone through significant uncertainty and convulsive change as a res…

It's not. I think this actually flips a lot of power back to the judicial branch in the short term, which is significant because federal judges enjoy lifetime appointments. Of course, Congress has the power to look at unexpected or perverse-seeming judicial outcomes and legislate accordingly, but the legislative process is typically slow and subject to various sorts of bargaining; a rather corruptible process.

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

#797

Post by cryptonector » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:32 PM UTC

VincentEvans wrote: post #705

cryptonector wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court decided this on statutory grounds because that's what this court likes to do: base decisions on the narrowest grounds possible. But it mentioned Marbury quite prominently and it's pretty clear that the court will not sustain a law that codifies Chevron.

Can court override the power of congress to put Chevron into law? Have there been instances where court struck down a law passed by congress before?

The court will be very zealous of its power (from 1803, in Marbury v. Madison) to decide that laws are unconstitutional, so yes, if the court things a statutory codification of Chevron is unconstitutional, they will so rule.

However it's also very unlikely that Congress will pass Chevron into law, and the text they might write might be narrow enough to pass constitutional muster, so until then this is a purely academic question.

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

#798

Post by tomcam » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:33 PM UTC

> The Supreme Court on Friday curtailed the executive branch's ability to interpret laws it's charged with implementing, giving the judiciary more say in what federal agencies can do.

That is one way to view it. Another way is that legislation should be left to legislators.

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

#799

Post by autoexec » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:35 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #739

autoexec wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congress can actually legislate the right of agencies to interpret the gaps in the laws back into effect - by passing a law that explicitly gives agencies this power. Congress can't actually legislate anything while it's held hostage by obstructionists and there's effectively zero chance that a bunch of republicans who want to dismantle the already inadequate regulations that keep entire communities from being pois…

> Congress can't actually legislate anything Did you miss the hundreds of billions of dollars of legislating the Congress did this year?

Did you miss the part where I said " while it's held hostage by obstructionists"?

When everyone is in agreement, congress is not being held hostage by obstructionists and some things can pass. When obstructionists are in disagreement, they can prevent anything from passing.

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

#800

Post by wahern » Fri, Jun 28, 2024, 10:36 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #745

pas wrote: post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sorry, can someone explain this to someone who gave up on the article at the first bullet point, nor had enough sleep (and so is too lazy to look up everything) thanks!

Long ago Congress passed laws delegating a lot of rulemaking authority to the executive branch, the idea being that Congresspersons and their staff aren't deep-knowledge experts in most fields, and a lot of detailed rulemaking is best left to non-partisan career government employees (which, however, are usually guided by partisan political appointees, unfortunately). This is potentially dicey where the constitution i…

I think this misses an important distinction. The issue here isn't the extent to which Congress can delegate rule-making authority to executive agencies. Those bounds haven't been moved. The issue is how how much deference courts are to give agencies when deciding when an agency-made rule reasonably adheres to the purpose and function of a statute. In theory the degree of deference shouldn't matter--agencies' retain the same rule-making authority and flexibility as before--but as a matter of process it absolutely does.

SCOTUS invented the Chevron doctrine because it believed at the time courts were too quick to second-guess the logic behind agency rule making, and in doing so unnecessarily and improperly inserting themselves into technical debates as well as broader political debates. IOW, the court was primarily concerned with people using the courts to subvert executive prerogatives and electoral politics. The concern now, apparently, is that administrations are using agency flexibility to subvert electoral politics.

Then and now, by moving the threshold for when courts can second-guess federal agencies, it's effectively altering the rights and responsibilities between Congress and the President, as well as between those two institutions and the electorate more broadly.