Supreme Court Rejects Chevron Doctrine: Direct Updates

The court’s opinion could make it easier for opponents of federal regulations to challenge them in court, triggering a rush of new litigation while also injecting uncertainty into businesses and industries.

“If Americans are worried about their drinking water, their health, their retirement account, discrimination at work, if they fly a plane, drive a car, if they go outside and breathe the air — all of these day in and day out . activities are run through a massive universe of federal agency regulations,” said Lisa Heinzerling, an administrative law expert at Georgetown University. “And this decision now means more of those regulations can be struck down by the courts.”

The ruling effectively ends a legal precedent known as Chevron Deference, following a 1984 Supreme Court decision that held that when Congress passes a law that lacks specificity, courts must give wide latitude to decisions made by federal agencies charged with enforcing that law. The theory was that scientists, economists and other agency specialists have more expertise than judges in setting regulations and that the executive branch is also more accountable to voters.

Since then, thousands of legal decisions have relied on the Chevron doctrine when challenging regulations stemming from laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, the Clean Air Act of 1970, the Affordable Care Act of 2010- and others.

In writing the laws, Congress has often used open-ended directives, such as “ensuring that the rule is in the public interest,” leaving it up to agency experts to write rules to limit toxic smog, to ensure that health plans cover services medical basis, the safety of drugs and cosmetics, and protect consumers from risky corporate financial behavior.

But that gave too much power to unelected government officials, according to conservatives, who waged a coordinated, years-long campaign to end the Chevron doctrine. They believe that courts, not administrative agencies, should have the power to interpret statutes. The effort was led by Republican attorneys general, conservative legal activists and their funders, some with ties to big corporations and supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.

“Overturning Chevron was a common goal of the conservative movement and the Trump administration. It’s been expressed repeatedly,” said Mandy Gunasekara, who served as chief of staff at the EPA under President Trump and helped write Project 2025, a policy blueprint for an incoming Republican administration. “This creates a massive opportunity for these regulations to be challenged. And it could spur additional momentum toward curbing the administration if the administration changes in November.”

However, Jonathan Berry, who served as a senior Labor Department official under Mr. Trump, noted that overturning the Chevron doctrine itself “doesn’t blow anything up right away.”

Rather, Mr. Berry said, the fate of the regulations will be determined by what happens when they start moving through the courts without Chevron’s protection. “The mystery is exactly how much of this stuff goes down,” Mr. Berry said.

Here’s a look at how the decision could affect various government agencies.

Environmental Protection Agency

Environmentalists fear that the end of the Chevron doctrine will mean the elimination of hundreds of EPA rules aimed at limiting air and water pollution, protecting people from toxic chemicals and, especially, addressing climate change.

Over the past six months, the Biden administration has rolled out the most ambitious rules in the country’s history aimed at reducing climate-warming pollution from cars, trucks, power plants and oil and gas wells. Without these rules, it is highly unlikely that President Biden will meet his goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the decade, which analysts say all major economies must do to avoid the deadliest and most catastrophic impacts of climate change. global warming. .

All of Biden’s climate rules have already been the target of lawsuits that are winding their way through the courts.

Legal experts say the Chevron amendment won’t remove the EPA’s basic legal obligation to regulate climate-warming pollution: This was explicitly spelled out in a 2007 Supreme Court decision and in 2022 legislation passed by Democrats waiting for challenges to this authority.

But specific regulations — such as those designed to cut pollution from cars and trucks by accelerating the transition to electric vehicles, or to cut pollution from power plants by using costly carbon capture and sequestration technology — may now be more vulnerable. legally.

The result would most likely be that strict climate rules designed to significantly reduce emissions could be replaced by much looser rules that reduce pollution much less. Experts say this may also be the fate of existing regulations on smog, clean water and hazardous chemicals.

Employment Agencies

Eliminating the Chevron amendment could affect workers in a variety of ways, making it more difficult for the government to pass workplace safety regulations and enforce minimum wage and overtime rules.

A recent example was in April, when the Biden administration raised the wage level below which salaried workers automatically become eligible for overtime pay to nearly $59,000 a year from about $35,000, starting on 1 January. Business groups have challenged the Labor Department’s authority to set a so-called wage floor, and such challenges would have a much better chance of success without the Chevron precedent, experts said.

The shift could also curb protections for workers who publicly challenge their employers’ policies, according to Charlotte Garden, a professor of labor law at the University of Minnesota. The National Labor Relations Board often concludes that a single worker has the right to protest low wages, harassment, or participation policies without being disciplined or fired. But the relevant law refers to “concerted activities”, meaning the protection can now only apply to groups of employees who stage such protests, not individuals, Professor Garden said.

Food and Drug Administration

The Food and Drug Administration has considerable power when it sets standards for how new drugs must be studied and whether they are safe and effective before they are approved for use. Lawyers working at the agency said companies seeking approvals at that high bar can now challenge those regulations. Others said the legal challenges could eventually affect drug prices.

Challenges are also expected in the agency’s tobacco division, which authorizes the sale of new cigarettes and e-cigarettes with the goal of protecting public health. “I would expect the industry to attack the FDA’s authority to do premarket review at all,” said Desmond Jenson, deputy director of the commercial tobacco control program at the Public Health Law Center.

Others noted that the Chevron decision could have a chilling effect, forcing the FDA to proceed with caution, given the potential for litigation, if it moves forward with proposals to ban menthol cigarettes or to ‘made them less addictive by lowering nicotine levels.

Health care

The court’s decision could affect how Medicare, Medicaid and Affordable Care insurance plans are administered, health law experts said, as opponents gain an opportunity to challenge the way these large programs operate.

The health care system is governed by elaborate regulations that cover how hospitals operate, which providers are paid for medical services, and how insurance companies are monitored by the government. Much of this regulation is based on interpretation of laws dating back decades. Big industries could be affected if the rules are changed.

“There are an awful lot of regulations flying under the radar that are just about making sure the trains run on time,” said Nicholas Bagley, a law professor at the University of Michigan.

Rachel Sachs, a health law expert at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. ways.

“There is a lot of work to be done in this process,” she said. “And therefore there are many opportunities for challengers to pick apart specific choices that CMS and HHS are making in interpreting these rules.”

The Biden administration has written health regulations that envision a world without Chevron’s respect, said Abbe R. Gluck, a health law expert at Yale Law School who served in the White House early in Mr. Biden’s tenure. For this reason, she thinks that litigation over the latest rules may be less affected by this change than challenges related to some older regulations.

“The Supreme Court has not relied on Chevron for many years,” she said. “So the federal government, including HHS, is used to drafting regulations and making interpretive arguments as if Chevron didn’t exist.”

“They’ve already adapted,” Ms. Gluck said.

Treasury and Internal Revenue Service

The Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service both have broad mandates to interpret legislation when they write rules and regulations and enforce the tax code.

Since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, the Treasury Department has raced to issue rules related to billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits that provide big incentives for things like making batteries or buying electric vehicles. The Treasury Department has received feedback from several legislators who claim that it did not follow the intent of the law.

Although Congress creates the tax code through legislation, the IRS has wide latitude in how the tax laws are administered. Accounting experts have suggested that the court’s decision could complicate the agency’s ability to administer the tax code without specific direction from Congress.

A recent example is how the agency last year delayed implementation of a controversial tax policy that would have required users of digital wallets and e-commerce platforms to report small transactions. The new provision was introduced into the tax code in 2021, but was strongly opposed by lobbyists and small businesses.

The IRS drew criticism from some lawmakers for delaying the policy, but the agency defended its decision by arguing that taxpayers needed a longer transition period before the measure could be implemented to avoid a chaotic tax season.