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The Supreme Court will likely reject the Chevron doctrine, which gives federal agencies more power.
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The decision could make it easier for courts to block President Joe Biden’s climate policies.
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Business leaders and conservative groups argue that the Chevron doctrine leads to federal overreach.
Climate advocates and business groups are keeping a close eye on the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
The court could issue a ruling that sharply limits the federal government’s power to regulate the environment, including President Joe Biden’s climate policies.
The case involves a group of commercial fishermen who opposed fees they had to pay to have federal observers on board their vessels to prevent overfishing. But at its heart is four decades of legal precedent, known as the Chevron Doctrine, that has shaped the role of federal agencies.
Business groups and conservatives argue that the doctrine allows federal bureaucrats to overstep their authority on issues related not only to the environment but also to broad swaths of the economy. The attorneys representing the commercial fishermen come from the Cause of Action Institute, a nonprofit in the libertarian network built by Charles Koch, the petrochemical billionaire who has advocated deregulation.
Environmental groups worry that undoing the Chevron doctrine will make it easier for courts to block regulations, especially those from the Biden administration aimed at curbing greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet.
Here’s what you need to know:
What is the Chevron Doctrine?
Congress writes laws, and federal agencies write the rules to implement them. But Congress is not always clear and does not regularly update old laws to reflect scientific or technological advances.
The Chevron Doctrine states that when the law is ambiguous, courts must defer to the federal agency’s interpretation, as long as it is reasonable. These offices are often staffed by people with technical and scientific expertise that judges do not possess.
That precedent stems from a 1984 lawsuit over air pollution rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency under President Ronald Reagan. The decision was effectively a defeat for environmentalists; the Natural Resources Defense Council had sought a broader definition of pollutants at major industrial plants like Chevron’s, but lost.
“The doctrine was neutral,” said David Doniger, a senior attorney at the NRDC, who argued the original Chevron case on behalf of the group. “It originally came up during the Reagan administration’s attempt to weaken the Clean Air Act.”
Doniger said Chevron’s opinion has since been cited more than 15,000 times by courts across the country. But he added that as the Obama and Biden administrations have pushed for stronger environmental policies, business groups and conservatives have come to see Chevron as “systematically enabling the government to do more.”
Where do the judges stand?
Legal experts say the Supreme Court, with its conservative majority, is likely to overturn or significantly restrict the Chevron doctrine.
Judge Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee, said in oral arguments in January that Chevron was problematic for small businesses and individuals with little power to influence federal agencies.
But Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, argued that health, safety and environmental rules protecting the public could be upended if Chevron were destroyed.
What can be influenced?
Doniger said that while reining in Chevron could make it easier to win cases aimed at reversing Biden’s climate policies, it is difficult to make predictions without knowing the scope of the Supreme Court’s ruling.
The EPA in the past year has imposed stricter limits on emissions from cars, trucks, power plants and oil and gas infrastructure, as well as on toxic chemicals in tap water — all of which have been targeted by lawsuits by Republican-led states. the fossil fuel industry or other companies.
“Advocates will attempt to characterize these rules as an expansion of EPA authority,” Doniger said.
In the meantime, he added, administrative lawyers have been preparing for this scenario at the Supreme Court. Biden’s EPA has not relied on the Chevron Doctrine to defend its climate rules.
That’s a departure from the Obama years, when the EPA cited the Chevron Doctrine in its effort to set the first limits on carbon emissions from power plants. Lengthy lawsuits followed and the Trump administration eventually shelved the plan.
Read the original article on Business Insider
