The end of June always brings decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court on the most consequential cases of the term. Closing out the most recent term, the Court took some extra time into July before issuing its final three decisions.
The most closely watched of course was the Court’s decision regarding presidential immunity for alleged criminal wrongdoing. The most consequential though may have been the Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Ramondo, which overturned the 40-year-old so-called Chevron doctrine that required courts to defer the interpretations of federal agencies when deciding cases involving federal rules and regulations.
Chevron held that if Congress passed a law without specifics, the courts must show deference to the decisions made by federal agencies that were given authority to implement the law. Courts could not interject their own interpretations over the agencies except in limited circumstances.
The Chevron doctrine came into existence as Congress moved away from legislating with particularity by issuing broad legislative enactments that left implementation and rulemaking to federal agencies empowered with enforcing the legislation.
The interpretations by those executive agencies would then vary from administration to administration leaving the public to question how rules would apply to them as government bureaucrats and presidential administrations changed.
By its ruling, the Court has now determined that federal courts will have final say in how to interpret rules that are implemented by the agencies, rather than leaving the agencies to interpret their own rules.
Under Chevron, litigants who challenged a rule or regulation implemented by an agency would not have recourse to the courts should a challenge not go in their favor. Now litigants will be able to appeal to the courts and make their course to a neutral judge when challenging an administrative rule.
Those who are alarmed by the Court’s decision believe that partisan judges will now begin to gut the administrative rules that have provided protections to progressive causes like the environment, labor, agriculture, consumer protection, and the food and drug administration. They believe that ultimately consumers and the general public will suffer at the hands of large corporate interests who have the means and the wherewithal to challenge tough standards in court.
However, over time the fix for the problems that progressives fear will come from a functioning Congress that will necessarily have to become more explicit in legislating leaving less room for courts and agencies to freely interpret as they see fit. The design is to put the power back in the hands of the people through the legislature and allow citizens to have a voice in rulemaking authority.
The public is evenly split on whether courts should have the ability to overrule agency decision-makers with 51 percent in favor of leaving the agencies in charge while 49 percent believe courts should have the final say.
Immediately after the Court issued its decision last week, environmentalists raised alarms that rulemaking authority given to the Environmental Protection Agency to protect clean air and water may be more limited resulting in negative impacts on the environment. Those who favored the court’s ruling have urged that it will now be incumbent on Congress to clearly state its environmental goals in legislation that it passes.
The likelihood is that over time we will begin to see the impacts of the Court’s decision in our daily lives as it becomes easier to challenge rules issued by governmental agencies.
The Law Office of Eric R. Brown 
Leave a comment