LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A ruling Friday could affect nearly every aspect of people’s lives, from the food they eat and the cars they drive to the air we breathe and the homes we live in.
In a 6-3 ruling, the United States Supreme Court overturned a landmark decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources, leaving the federal regulations that many live by every day open to the possibility of being changed or challenged.
Chevron Points: Supreme Court ruling removes commonly used tools from federal regulators
For Arkansans, the decision could change the rules under which they hunt and the regulations on farms and agriculture.
For the Arkansas retirement community, this could also have implications for Medicaid and Medicare regulations.
John DiPippa, dean emeritus and professor of law at the William Bowen School of Law, explained how far-reaching the ruling could be.
“Pretty much everything you touch throughout the day is subject to some sort of federal regulation,” DiPippa said.
The Supreme Court uses federal agency power in Chevron case
For the past 40 years, the consensus has been that experts at various regulatory agencies are better suited to make certain regulatory decisions than courts.
However, all of that is overturned, with the judge having the final say on how a law is interpreted.
“Somehow it opens up all of these regulations to challenge and undermine the ability and effectiveness of the court or the government to regulate all of these areas of health, safety, agriculture, etc.,” DiPippa said.
He said the ruling even affects current law.
“The Clean Air and Clean Water Acts were passed in the early ’70s,” DiPippa said. “That was long before the science of carbon dioxide, for example, existed, and carbon dioxide causes global warming, so now the question is can the Environmental Protection Agency regulate carbon dioxide emissions because they pollute the air or pose a threat to health and safety?”
What it means for the Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron decision, undermining federal regulators
The court’s ruling makes these types of decisions more difficult for the EPA, requiring Congress to update the law rather than the agency interpreting how to apply the law through regulations.
This could lead to Congress being more careful in drafting legislation, which DiPippa says is good news.
“The bad news is that the more precise you are, the easier it is to say, ‘You didn’t say this. You said X, Y, Z, but you didn’t say anything else, so that’s not covered. ‘” DiPippa said.
As for what this will mean for the future, DiPippa expects there could be hundreds, if not thousands, of legal challenges.
“Now the question is whether you can convince a judge that your interpretation of the law is better than the agency’s,” DiPippa said.
These are the cases yet to be decided by the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court argues that allowing federal agencies to interpret laws gives the executive branch too much power, one reason why the Chevron case was overturned.
This could also lead to different opinions between courts if each individual judge has the final say.
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