Report: Supreme Court Ruling Will ‘Exceptionally’ Limit Power of Federal Agencies

CNN highlighted President Joe Biden’s swift implementation of numerous executive orders upon taking office, such as halting border wall construction, revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit, and lifting restrictions on transgender individuals serving in the military.

However, a recent Supreme Court decision is anticipated to pose challenges for governing through executive orders in the future.

This insight comes from Sam Barker, a contributor at Axios, who referenced the ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo by the highest judicial body in the United States.

How the Supreme Court rewrote the presidency https://t.co/46bbVdkh4K

— Axios (@axios) July 17, 2024

According to Fox News, the case involved fishermen who opposed a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) rule mandating them to cover the cost of an “at-sea monitor” on their boat.

The Supreme Court’s decision in favor of the fishermen led to the overturning of a long-standing legal principle called “Chevron deference,” which had involved judges deferring to regulatory agencies when determining if statutory law authorized an agency’s actions.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA [Administrative Procedure Act] requires,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his majority opinion.

“Careful attention to the judgment of the Executive Branch may help inform that inquiry. And when a particular statute delegates authority to an agency consistent with constitutional limits, courts must respect the delegation, while ensuring that the agency acts within it,” the chief justice continued.

“But courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous,” Roberts stressed before calling Chevron “a judicial invention.”

He went on to insist that “the only way to ‘ensure that the law will not merely change erratically, but will develop in a principled and intelligible fashion” would be “to leave Chevron behind.”

In Barker’s view, the Supreme Court’s jettisoning of Chevron “will have immediate and lasting impacts across every policy area.”

He pointed to limits on power plants and auto emissions as being at risk as well as regulations concerning public health.

“Most importantly, it will be exceptionally difficult for future administrations to make new policy unless Congress passes new laws,” Barker asserted. What’s more, he said, “the courts will decide all of those disputes themselves, rather than generally assuming that regulatory agencies are the experts.”

Once again, that’s the way the Constitution intended it to be, which is precisely the Supreme Court’s argument.

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