In a landmark case, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the so-called Chevron doctrine would be overturned.
It is a 40-year standard that the conservative court eliminated with a 6-2 decision, in which Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself.
Lower courts have relied on this doctrine over 18,000 times to determine environmental regulations that stopped multinational corporations from polluting. The High Court has deferred to the doctrine 70 times, agreeing that they should defer to a government agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute.
The decision seriously limits the power of the executive branch and gives it to the courts.
ALSO READ: ‘Creepy weirdos’: Senator fears Trump WH staff would destroy government from ‘inside’
In her sharply worded dissent on the case, Justice Elena Kagan contends that "given Chevron's persuasiveness, the decision" to overrule the doctrine "is likely to produce large-scale disruption. All that backs today's decision is the majority's belief that Chevron was wrong--that it gave agencies too much power and courts not enough. But shifting views about the worth of regulatory actors and their work do not justify overhauling a cornerstone of administrative law. In that sense, too, today's majority has lost sight of its proper role."
Many legal experts and assorted observers were similarly aghast by the ruling.
Speaking to MSNBC after the ruling, former solicitor general Neal Katyal noted that it's a little-known case to everyday Americans, but “this is going to change government as we know it."
"It is impossible to overstate how damaging to governance--and to protections for air, water, food and drug safety, worker rights & so much more--the SCOTUS' overturning of (Justice Antonin Scalia's) Chevron Doctrine is. This is a landmark decision if only Americans understood how bad it is," wrote a national columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Jackie Calmes.
Policy analyst Ashley Tjhung said that the move was "just like the Koch brothers asked." It refers to the large company, Koch Industries, run by a right-wing family that fights to eliminate regulations.
"This is a key plank of the MAGA attack on the 'administrative state' and will reverberate through the entire federal government," explained democracy lawyer Marc Elias.
Christine Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said, "Supreme Court wipes out another 40 years of precedent — this time, overruling the Chevron Doctrine that tells courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of statutes they administer. Radical judicial activists strike again!
See Katyal in the video below or at the link here.
Supreme Court eliminates long-standing Chevron doctrine youtu.be
