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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   28342 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 24, 2024

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They might think that the agency was correct? The recent assault on the Chevron doctrine has to be one of the oddest crusades in recent judicial history. I understand that a lot of conservatives are critical of the administrative state, but it's not like overturning Chevron really changes anything. I understand the justices had their own reasons for overturning it, but let's face it, they're all just a bunch of eggheads that make rulings based on principle. The reason Chevron became a doctrine in the first place was because it involved highly technical questions that courts were reluctant to wade into. The original case involved whether Chevron had to apply for a permit or not. While people are generally concerned about environmental issues, they're concerned about the kind of issues that actually affect the environment, not about the details of EPA permitting requirements. The present case involved whether certain fishing vessels were required to pay for observers while in international waters. Again, a purely technical question that the Supreme Court kicked back to the lower courts to answer. The end result of this isn't necessarily that the lower courts strike down the regulation at issue; they can always find that it was consistent with the intent of congress. In any event, whether vessels in restricted fisheries have to pay for observers required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act or whether the North Atlantic Fisheries Service has to pay for them isn't likely to be a topic of discussion here when the lower courts make their determination. If the courts rule that the NAFS has to pay then I doubt many will consider it a crushing blow to the administrative state.

There are several functionalists arguments about the "value" of Chevron but no one is making any legal ones. The decision doesn't hold up constitutionally.

In any event, whether vessels in restricted fisheries have to pay for observers required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act or whether the North Atlantic Fisheries Service has to pay for them isn't likely to be a topic of discussion here when the lower courts make their determination.

My understanding is that congress allowed fishing councils to pass regulations to require observers, but that would be balanced against the NAFS budget for enforcement. Deciding that every ship needed a compliance observer and the ship needed to pay for it was a huge bureaucratic expansion.

Under Obama the EPA classified CO2 as a pollutant subject to their jurisdiction. Taken to absurdity, the EPA could start requiring every household pay for their own emissions observer to monitor their gas stove usage, car idling, and excessive breathing.

Obviously that's too far. But imagine if forcing the ships to pay without legislation becomes a well established government right. The ATF could start forcing various businesses to pay for frequent inspections.

OG Chevron was probably fine. Its extension basically eviscerated due process.

The reason Chevron became a doctrine in the first place was because it involved highly technical questions that courts were reluctant to wade into. The original case involved whether Chevron had to apply for a permit or not. While people are generally concerned about environmental issues, they're concerned about the kind of issues that actually affect the environment, not about the details of EPA permitting requirements.

I think people would care less if it were constrained to that, but Chevron is not some one-case-only matter. Even for the specific matter of EPA permitting requirement, Chevron applied not just the biggest businesses running power plants, but also smaller developers or individual homeowners (both later overturned). Nor does it limit to the EPA: big HHS tax credits, wireless stations, immigration law, vapes, wired internet, countless others. Some courts even tried to expand it to criminal law.

The bigger cases tend to involve corporations, both for obvious financial reasons and because individual plaintiffs seldom can attempt to follow the Sacketts at any price, but that just makes them the bigger cases.

It wasn’t highly technical questions. At least not in the sense of factual questions (ie does smokestack include the bubble or each stack). No these are all questions of law (ie what does the statute say). Chevron allowed agencies to answer that question enabling the executive to increasingly set policy even when that policy was a bit at odds with the statute. Sometimes it involved smoke stacks (which the NRDC was very much interested in); other times it involved other more weighty matters.

As for the idea that overturning Chevron won’t be a big blow to administrative state power, go on Westlaw and shepardize Chevron. There will easily be thousands of citations. It was a monumental case and striking it will have real meaningful changes in admin law.

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