On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court added to its track record of gutting prior established precedent in service to the interests of big business. The court issued rulings in two parallel cases -- Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce -- that both argued that a regulation involving the presence of federal inspectors aboard herring boats that required boat owners to PAY for the inspector's presence overstepped the authority of the agency involved, the National Marine Fisheries Service.
A 1976 law established a requirement that boats allow federal inspectors to ride to monitor compliance with limits on fisheries. In 2020, a regulatory ruling stated that boat owners would also have to pay $700 to the agency to cover the cost of the inspector's presence. That ruling triggered these lawsuits, leading to this ruling. These suits were reviewed in TWO different federal court districts and upheld by two different appeals courts, citing a 1984 ruling in Chevron v National Resources Defense Council that stated courts should defer to regulatory authorities to settle ambiguities in language involving regulatory enforcement.
Given the facts of this SPECIFIC case, it seems arguable that an agency imposing a $700 fee on boat owners to cover the cost of a mandatory on-board inspector IS an "arguable" dispute. One worthy of being heard in a court. It's not even clear who is "right" in this situation? Is charging a fisherman $700 for a ride-along reasonable? If a day's fishing haul is only worth $3000, maybe that's too high. If a day's fishing haul is worth $30,000 and one day of over-fishing can wipe out a fishery? Then the charge would seem perfectly viable. Is this over-stepping on the part of the regulatory agency? THAT'S WHY WE HAVE COURTS.
The USSC has been signaling through written opinions for years that it had members eager to reverse the precedent set in the 1984 Chevron case and wrestle administrative power from federal agencies. These prior written opinions were providing a roadmap for litigants to find the "right case" with the "right set of facts" they could use to rationalize a complete rejection of a prior precedent. This is an established modus operandi for the Roberts-led USSC.
It's worth noting the stated motivation for this reversal, as stated directly by Chief Justice Roberts. Said Roberts: "(A)gencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do."
So says the Chief Justice of a Supreme Court that simply makes up history when seeking to rationalize its "originalist" conclusions regarding matters of law.
In a highly complex, industrialized society, it is likely that any federal statute or regulatory ruling might have a bullet or clause that says something like this:
Businesses in industry W are required to submit quarterly paperwork X reflecting emission levels of chemical Y to agency Z within 30 days of the end of each calendar quarter or face penalties of 1% of annual revenue per day after each filing cut-off date.
Given that language, if someone wants to argue that the regulatory agency choosing the penalty level of 1% is beyond its power and that such decisions require legislative clarity, that concern makes perfect sense. However, if an affected business is attempting to argue that the regulatory agency has no authority to define acceptable emissions levels or the exact nature of the test used to measure emissions, those are NOT topics more suited for a JUDGE to decide. A trial judge or appeals court judge assigned at random to a lawsuit filed by a business is NOT likely to be expert in the subject matter. It can be argued that by the agency being managed by an elected President, an administrator in that agency has more accountability to the public's current preferred interpretation of any ambiguities than a judge.
As further proof of the hypocrisy of this new reversal from the USSC, it's worth noting the original USSC ruling from 1984 being gutted was seen at the time as a conservative win. The case originated from an attempt by an environmental group (National Defense Resource Council) suing to force the EPA to use an extremely literal interpretation of a law requiring chemical plant operators to obtain permits and conduct environmental impact reviews on ANY change to equipment within a plant. The EPA had devised a "bubble" concept in which as long as NET emissions from a plant weren't expected to change, plant operators could ALTER existing equipment without permits / review. The Chevron ruling DEFERRED authority on what types of changes required review TO the EPA because in that original case, the EPA was being LENIENT to Chevron and providing greater flexibility than desired by environmental groups.
How influential is this prior precedent and how impactful is the Court's gutting of the precedent? The New York Times reports that Chevron has been cited in SEVENTY United States Supreme Court decisions since 1984 and has been cited in SEVENTEEN THOUSAND lower court cases.
POOF. Gone.
To be clear, the intent of the Supreme Court in gutting this ruling wasn't only to resolve this "fishy" issue regarding herring boats. Their intent wasn't only to wrestle decision making power away from administrators within federal agencies and swing that power to the courts. Their intent was to trigger a WAVE of new litigation in which any prior lawsuit by big businesses throughout the country that was "lost" in "deference" to a regulatory agency gets re-litigated and potentially tossed after landing in a friendly court.
But that's not all. By rejecting the principle that "details" can be delegated to regulators in highly complex matters, this ruling will PARALYZE nearly any future attempt at passing new laws regulating business due to the difficulty in writing language clear enough to allow enforcement without allowing special interests to kill the proposal before exiting a Senate or House sub-committee. And even if such a miracle law survives that gauntlet to be enacted, if the underlying technology used to provide a sample is improved or a better criteria for measuring compliance is devised, this ruling will be used to reject any change in interpretation and instead require NEW laws to be passed, through the same gauntlet corrupted by big business lobbyists. This will tie the hands of regulators and allow multi-billion dollar corporations to continue existing operations knowing tighter rules will take years or decades to impose.
WTH
