Among Incredibly Stupid Court Decisions, Chevron’s Overturn Takes the Best

The American “Supreme” Court has just issued an opinion that would overturn Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Councilfurther increasing government gridlock and placing activist judges in place of career scientists to decide specific answers to some of the most crucial questions of the day, such as those related to climate emissions and other environmental problems.

Of the many incredibly stupid opinions the Court has issued recently, this is one of the stupidest, and we’ll explain why.

Just two days after issuing an opinion that would legalize the kind of bribes they themselves accepted, and one day after once again ignoring the Clean Air Act and asserting that the federal government could not regulate interstate emissions, the Court issued an opinion today in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo this would invalidate a previous decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

The original Chevron The case was actually decided in favor of Chevron. Reagan’s EPA, which at the time was administered by Neil Gorsuch’s mother, Anne Gorsuch, attempted to ease regulations on oil companies, which the NRDC sued. The court ruled that the EPA’s interpretation would stand, giving a big victory to Anne Gorsuch and the oil companies.

THE Chevron case created what is called “Chevron “deference,” meaning that when a law is unclear in its details, courts must defer to the reasonable interpretation of professionals within a government agency as to what those details mean. This does not mean that agencies can make up their work as they go along, just that they can fill in the gaps left by Congress.

Over the past four decades, this decision has become the foundation of much of this country’s administrative law.

After all, lawmakers in Congress are not scientists, so they will often pass a law saying something like “the EPA should regulate harmful air pollutants”, and leave it up to the EPA to decide which pollutants it should regulate. ‘acts, how they should be regulated and how these regulations should evolve over time.

Judges are also not scientists, so it is reasonable for them to defer to the interpretation of professionals who have a lot of data and take a lot of time to craft specific regulations when the legislature asks them to do so. In the course of crafting and updating these regulations, events will arise that Congress did not anticipate, and someone will have to make that decision.

Agencies like the EPA or NOAA, which work with some of the most respected climate scientists in the world, are a great place to go to find up-to-date recommendations and answers to these questions. And Chevron Deference is what has kept these agencies working well over the past few decades, and it is what ensures that they can continue to work as we confront climate change, the greatest problem humanity has ever caused.

This kind of deference is essential to effective government. And any lawyer or law student can tell you how important it has been in shaping administrative law over the past few decades.

And it has benefited electric vehicles, for example by allowing the EPA to set emissions rules that will save lives and money, or by allowing the IRS to change the guidelines for the electric vehicle tax credit to make it easier for consumers to access.

Without Chevron By deference, this would mean that reasonable rules intended to facilitate the implementation of laws could be challenged and reinterpreted by individual judges who ignore the issues at stake – and that the plaintiffs, probably in the form of a large polluting corporation that wants to circumvent regulations to harm you further, might shop around to find a specific judge who they know in advance will rule in their favor and against the public interest.

To be clear, Chevron deference only applies to situations where the law is ambiguous and the agency’s interpretation was reasonable and obtained through appropriate government processes – adhering to public comment requirements, etc. If an agency interpretation is arbitrary, it could still be rejected. All of this is covered by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and by previous court decisions restricting Chevron.

The Court’s opinion creates more blockages, it is a “dictatorship of the court”

But today, in the court’s view, the foundations of this country’s administrative law for decades should disappear. Raimondo, the court ruled on the validity of a NOAA regulation on the fishing industry. In fact, lower courts did not fully rely on Chevron deference in their decisions, believing that the law was not ambiguous in the first place. But the Court took this opportunity to rule on Chevron in any case, despite its limited applicability to the facts of this case.

Under the Court’s current view, rather than impartial career scientists weighing in on complex issues and helping to fill in gaps that Congress had not anticipated or understood, that responsibility would now fall to politically appointed justices, often ignorant. These judges will be called upon to make decisions on the appropriateness of specific regulations in a number of areas in which they are not qualified: air quality, technology, labor regulations, tariff policy, agricultural subsidies, housing development , privacy and many other issues that they know nothing about.

In short, that means more shutdowns of the kind Americans hate, and more “activist judges” that everyone claims to hate. Even in the ideal situation envisioned by defenders of today’s decision, where an unparalyzed Congress would be able to quickly answer any agency question with new legislation on which the agency would meet to decide. ‘agreed, there will always be ambiguities and inefficiencies due to the need to consult another Not professional body responsible for ambiguous scientific questions.

If you’re tired of government waste and inefficiency, and of bogged down court systems that take years to get anything done (in direct violation of the 6th Amendment), then guess what.

You know that “legislating from the bench” you’ve heard of? That’s it, explicitly. The Court found that he should have the final responsibility for developing every regulation, even if it is a subject they know nothing about (or worse, perhaps it is a subject in which they have a direct personal interest, and on which they will rule anyway).

It also means less participatory government. Agencies were already not allowed to deviate from the script and make up whatever they wanted. Deference was only given if their interpretations were reasonable, related to a question not explicitly answered by the law in question, and were obtained after seeking input from stakeholders (the public, industry, scientists , etc.). The Court could already reject unreasonable interpretations or those that engaged in arbitrary and capricious regulation (or the Court could simply invent its own absurdities, as it has done before).

Now, the Court has officially stood before the public and its elected officials, both at the executive and legislative levels. Instead of voters, scientists, business and public interest organizations, unions, etc. have a say, it is now just an unelected court that will win the case – five of which were appointed by people who lost their respective presidential elections, by about 500 thousand and ~3 million votes respectively.

Even worse than “legislating from the judiciary”, it is a dictatorship of the judiciary. The bench decided that theirs constitutes the set of powers of the executive and legislative powers.

And he was just waiting for a case where he could do it – because Neil Gorsuch (another illegitimate appointee, who wrote his own concurring opinion today) wanted to overturn Chevron for a long time. He prejudged this case long ago, long before the details of this case were known, and is simply waiting to implement his judgment. This is generally considered a violation of jurisprudence.

As has often been the case recently, the court is displaying a complete ignorance not only of the legal and governmental issues its opinion will raise, but also of its own recent actions. Consider this choice quote from today’s opinion:

Chevron insists on more than the “respect” historically accorded to executive branch interpretations; it requires courts to mechanically grant binding deference to agency interpretations, including those that have been inconsistent over time, see id., at 863, and even when pre-existing judicial precedent holds that an ambiguous statute means otherwise Thing, National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand

In this passage, John Roberts argues that agency interpretations are deficient because they are “inconsistent over time.”

It does not matter that the agencies’ interpretations are necessarily inconsistent, given that the world and technology change (e.g. as technology advances, more efficient vehicles become more practical and therefore stricter emissions limits become possible), but Roberts ignores the inconsistency of his own court on all kinds of subjects in this passage.

And on a legal level, this opinion would invalidate several decades of administrative law, and leaves lawyers today wondering how it will even be possible to do their job with this grenade thrown in the middle of the field.

If a government agency were to have its toys taken away for inconsistency, then what Roberts is arguing here is that himself should be ignored.

On this part of the opinion, at least, we agree. Roberts and his illegitimate court are the antithesis of effective government and work neither in the interest of public policy nor for the benefit of the public. Their opinions should be treated as such: opinions emanating from private individuals who are clearly not interested in law or government.

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