By Alexandra Alper and Jody Godoy
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. business interests hope the Supreme Court in coming weeks will overturn a legal doctrine established 40 years ago that has strengthened the federal government’s position in thousands of legal battles over regulatory actions.
The doctrine, known as Chevron deference, calls on judges to defer to interpretations of U.S. laws by federal agencies that are deemed ambiguous. This doctrine, one of the most important principles in administrative law, arose from a 1984 Supreme Court decision involving oil company Chevron. It is opposed by conservatives and business interests, but supported by liberals who favor robust business regulation.
The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, could overturn or overturn it in a ruling expected in late June in a case in which fishing companies are trying to avoid costs associated with a government-run program to monitor due to overfishing of herring off the coast of New England. The lawsuit is part of a broader conservative project to strip regulatory power from federal agencies.
The judges heard arguments in the case on January 17. Many legal scholars predict that the court will put an end to the doctrine.
Here you will find an explanation of the different positions on this issue.
THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents more than 300,000 companies, has argued that Chevron’s deference has allowed Congress to “outsource core policy decisions (particularly controversial ones) to agencies through broadly worded statutes.” That, it added, has given the agencies “free rein to establish their own new regulatory requirements through sweeping rulemaking or ex post enforcement actions.”
The group said this in turn results in “heavy new burdens on businesses”. The Chamber of Commerce has sued the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to challenge a new rule banning non-compete agreements in employment contracts. Such rules “often raise important legal and policy questions on which Congress would have to take a position, without specific congressional authorization,” the report said.
The Democratic-led FTC banned the agreements in April, calling the action necessary to curb the increasingly common practice of requiring workers to sign “non-compete agreements,” even in lower-paying service industries such as fast food and retail. In a well-known example, sandwich chain Jimmy John’s agreed to stop enforcing such agreements in 2016.
That FTC rule and others could be in jeopardy if the Supreme Court were to review Chevron’s deference.
E-CIGARETTES
E-cigarette manufacturers, distributors and retailers want the Supreme Court to rein in Chevron’s deference. They have accused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of going “well beyond” its legal authority to essentially ban all non-tobacco flavored e-cigarettes, which these companies say have been used by millions of addicted cigarette smokers to move away from traditional cigarettes.
In a brief, the group asked the Supreme Court to at least limit the scope of Chevron’s deference “to ensure that lower courts can properly discern Congress’s intentions and enforce the statutory provisions as written.” “
The FDA initially believed e-cigarettes had some promise in helping adult smokers transition from conventional cigarettes, but anti-smoking groups urged the agency to restrict flavored e-cigarettes amid a rise in vaping among young people.
DEMOCRATIC SENATORS
Democratic U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Mazie Hirono and Elizabeth Warren have strongly defended the doctrine, describing it as key to allowing Congress to rely on the agency’s “subject matter expertise” to advance the broad policy goals of lawmakers like U.S. help achieve. industries are becoming increasingly complex.
“Administrative regulations reined in dangerous industrial activities, and our society became safer and more prosperous,” the senators said, describing the effort to overturn the doctrine as “a decades-long effort by pro-corporate interests to destroy the federal regulatory apparatus.” disrupt government. at the expense of the American people.”
The senators also took aim at the “theatricality of the industry-funded campaign” against the doctrine. They cited a dissent written by a judge on the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who described Chevron’s deference as the “Lord Voldemort of administrative law,” invoking the fictional wizard from the Harry Potter books that are so bad people are afraid to say his name.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper in Washington Jody Godoy in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
