The Supreme Court weakens federal regulators, overturning decades-old Chevron decision
WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday, a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the federal government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections was overturned, delivering a sweeping and potentially lucrative victory for corporate interests.
The judges overturned the 1984 decision popularly known as Chevronlong a target of conservatives.
Billions of dollars are potentially at stake in challenges that could arise from the Supreme Court ruling. The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer had warned that such a move would be an “unwarranted shock to the justice system.” Chief Justice John Roberts noted that previous cases relying on the Chevron are not in dispute.
The heart of the Chevron decision says federal agencies should be allowed to fill in the details if the laws aren’t crystal clear. Opponents of the decision argued that it gave the power that should be exercised by judges to experts working for the government.
The court has ruled in cases brought by Atlantic herring fishermen in New Jersey and Rhode Island who challenged a fee requirement. Lower courts used the Chevron decision to uphold a 2020 rule by the National Marine Fisheries Service that herring fishermen pay for government-mandated observers to track their fish catch.
Conservatives and business leaders strongly supported the fishermen’s appeals, betting that a new court, to be assembled during the presidency of Republican Donald Trump, would deal another blow to the regulatory state.
The court’s conservative majority has previously curbed environmental regulations and halted Biden’s Democratic administration’s initiatives on COVID-19 vaccines and student loan forgiveness.
The justices had not invoked Chevron since 2016, but lower courts continued to do so.
Forty years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 6-0, dismissing three justices, that judges must play a limited, deferential role in reviewing the actions of agency experts in a case brought by environmental groups to challenge the government’s attempt -Reagan to challenge regulation of power plants and factories.
“Judges are not experts in this field, and are not part of any of the political branches of government,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in 1984, explaining why they should play a limited role.
But the current Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has become increasingly skeptical of the powers of federal agencies. Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas all expressed doubts about the Chevron decision.
Opponents of the Chevron doctrine argue that judges too often apply it to rubber-stamp decisions made by government bureaucrats. Judges must exercise their own authority and judgment to say what the law is, they argued to the Supreme Court.
In defense of the rulings that upheld the charges, President Joe Biden’s administration said reversing the Chevron decision would cause a “convulsive shock” to the justice system.
Environmental and health groups, civil rights organizations, labor unions and Democrats at the national and state levels had called on the court to uphold the Chevron ruling.
Gun, e-cigarette, ranching, timber and homebuilding groups were among the business groups that backed the fishermen. Conservative interests also intervened in recent Supreme Court cases limiting regulatory control sky And water The fishermen also suffered from pollution.
The fisherman filed a lawsuit challenging the 2020 regulations. This arrangement would have allowed compensation of more than $700 per day, although no one ever had to pay it.
In separate lawsuits in New Jersey and Rhode Island, the fishermen argued that Congress never gave federal regulators the authority to require fishermen to pay for monitors. They lost in the lower courts, which relied on the Chevron decision to uphold the regulations.
The justices were hearing two cases on the same issue, as Judge Kentanji Brown Jackson was withdrawn from the New Jersey case. She has previously participated in this as an appeal judge. The full court participated in the case from Rhode Island.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.