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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

#821

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 while it's held hostage by obstructionists That’s a feature, not a bug.

I used to think this. I have come to believe the opposite. We can’t _never_ update _any_ laws. It’s chaos.

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

#822

So if I work for the ohhh I dunno department of energy, and im working on rules for, uh, i dunno, radiation exposure. Does this mean that DOE cant what—set legally safe exposure levels? The court has to?

There will be no controversy.

The Court will refer to DoE's definitions/rulemaking. Issue closed.

Now, if DoE started publishing guidelines about the radiation levels in bananas to be marketed in the U.S., the Courts would look at DoE like they have a second head, and tell them Congress never intended for them to govern banana radiation levels. That's the FDA's job.

Now let's make it more interesting. Let's say DoE passes down rulemaking around the how radiation exposure resulting from food intake by Nuclear plant employees gets factored into lifetime exposure, and Dole sues to have their bananas excluded from the calculation.

Under Chevron, check the statute, no mention of banana-ry. Check the agency definitions for reasonability:

Guideline related to management of Energy infra/workers in the United States. Okay. The Government is passing something that applies to all DoE covered workers. Okay. No single entity (purveyor of fruit) is singled out. No invalid statutory constructions were used. Check with FDA for corroborating info. Okay.

Tell Dole DoE's rulemaking request is ultimately reasonable and within scope for fulfilling DoE's narrowly scoped mandate; end of story.

The gist is the Court can't just ignore a request for redress of grievance via deferring to the Executive Agency in question anymore.

Obligatory IANAL. Just my read of the decision. The justices really drilled home on review of administrative law being the job of the courts. Not the Executive.

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

#823

This is a complete disaster. The ramifications will be felt for decades. Now businesses must factor in the uncertainty of any random person launching a lawsuit that causes a local court to reverse a federal agency policy. Huge potential impacts to product / revenue, not just legal fees to fight everything. And immeasurable impacts of cowing all bold business decisions to avoid the ire of any person or group, no matte…

> Now businesses must factor in the uncertainty of any random person launching a lawsuit that causes a local court to reverse a federal agency policy.

Spurious lawsuits annoying small businesses is already the case in America. I've defended against plenty of them. The concept of someone using random lawsuits to target local courts to overturn federal agency policy is very far removed from a businessowner's mind compared to the other types of litigation that actually happens on a regular basis.

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

#824

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.

I suppose Congress could use its power under Article III’s Exceptions Clause to strip the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) of jurisdiction to hear cases challenging an agency’s adherence to its enabling statute. Courts would still always be able to hear constitutional challenges, of course.

And wouldn't this court still take this kind of challenge on constitutional grounds? That congress has no power to give legislative authority to an executive agency?

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

#825

This is a complete disaster. The ramifications will be felt for decades. Now businesses must factor in the uncertainty of any random person launching a lawsuit that causes a local court to reverse a federal agency policy. Huge potential impacts to product / revenue, not just legal fees to fight everything. And immeasurable impacts of cowing all bold business decisions to avoid the ire of any person or group, no matte…

We also need to consider that the chance of another Andrew Jackson approaches 100% the more this unhinged court does this.

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

#826

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 academ…

Couldn't congress explicitly strip the courts of their authority to review the Chevron-codifying law in the text of that same law?

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

#827
post #749

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…

a mystery to me

It's ably explained in Roberts' opinion. In short, Congress often left the fine details to the agencies, not least because the laws were often drafted within those same agencies. Chevron was based on the idea that if statutory text is ambiguous the people in charge of implementing said statute were best positioned to figure out what it meant, in accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act (which sets out rules for for how agencies make rules, eg requiring consultations, publications of proposed rules, public comment periods thereon etc.).

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

#828

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 while it's held hostage by obstructionists That’s a feature, not a bug.

I don't think there are many Americans who prefer a deadlocked and dysfunctional congress that is incapable of doing their jobs. We have a lot of things that need doing in this country which can't get done when obstructionists stand in the way.

There will always be some number of petty people who don't care what the costs are as long as "their team" isn't allowing the "other team" a win, and those who don't want the federal government doing anything other than war, but when our government shuts down most American's aren't very happy about it. Most have a list of things they'd like their representatives in Washington to be doing for them, and they don't view the obstructionists acting like toddlers preventing those things from happening very favorably.

In the end, a partisan pissing match doesn't actually help the American people and our government should be working for us, not sitting on their hands doing nothing while the American people suffer and backslide. As long as election results are entirely divorced from approval ratings congress has zero incentive to work for the people though and they can get away with preventing the government from being functional/useful for anyone but themselves and the people stuffing their pockets.

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

#829
post #694
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally, people are suffering because the courts are acting for political expedience instead of doing and saying what's right and correct. Congress should get its Act together, but one group acting in responsible is not license for another group to act irresponsible.

acting for political expedience? They are making heavily impactful, politically unpopular moves to correct what they believe to be long term errors buried in court precedent.

It's politically expedient for their goals, your post explains exactly why: they are hugely unpopular moves, if for any reason, because of the tremendous uncertainty they create in the law at large.

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

#830

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.

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.

Isn't the only reason the Supreme Court would not sustain a law is because it is unconstitutional? And otherwise their only role is to interpret laws? At least that's the way it is supposed to be AFAIK.
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