The Supreme Court of the United States overturned this Friday Chevron doctrine asserting its conservative majority of six judges against three with a sentence destined to have enormous and lasting effects on the daily lives of millions of Americans. The ruling, a serious blow to the authority of federal agencies, will be felt in the regulations that regulate issues such as the environment, health, food, the financial sector and workers’ rights. It will also curtail the autonomy of government officials in those areas.
That doctrine was established by a 1984 ruling by that same high court that gave autonomy to federal agencies when it came to lowering the application of a law when it was not very specific in its wording, a widespread custom in the US legislative system. in which congressmen agree on texts full of vagueness that then have to be interpreted. The idea behind this precedent was that the agencies have experts who generally understand the subject better than federal judges and that therefore their criteria should prevail.
For its conservative critics, the Chevron doctrine It increased the power of the “administrative state” or what is known, in a more conspiratorial sense, as the “deep state”, that alleged invisible army of bureaucrats who supposedly control the strings of power in the country from their offices in the corrupt swamp of Washington.
After decades of battling against this precedent, groups of conservative activists finally found the leverage they were looking for in the current Supreme Court, whose composition, with only three liberal judges, is further to the right than at any time since the 1930s. They saw the crack through which to enter in the case that was resolved this Friday, which is called Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, surname of Gina Raimondo, US Secretary of Economy.
The plaintiffs are an association of small family-owned herring fishermen in Cape May, New Jersey, required under the Magnuson-Stevens law regulating sustainable fishing to carry monitors on their boats to ensure that their gear meets certain requirements. ethical requirements. This rule does not specify who is obliged to pay for this expensive technology.
Until the recent cuts, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was footing the bill, but since they ran out of money, it has been the responsibility of the herring boat owners, who found it unsustainable to pay $700 a day for the machines. That amount, they calculated, took up 20 percent of the boat’s earnings from a day at sea.
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The majority opinion was written by the president of the Supreme Court, the conservative John Roberts. The central argument is that those who should have “the special competence to resolve legal ambiguities” are not the officials, but the courts.
Justice Elena Kagan, in a dissenting opinion, argued that Friday’s ruling was “yet another example of the court’s determination to roll back agency authority, despite Congress’s direction to the contrary.” “Most [conservadora] “He disdains moderation and only seeks to extend his power,” he added.
Last year, that same majority already limited the ability of the environmental agency (EPA) to protect wetlands with another controversial ruling. And the nine justices this Thursday overturned a Biden plan to reduce air pollution and fog that crosses state borders. The EPA initiative imposed limits on emissions from power plants and industrial sources in windward states to reduce pollution from their neighbors.
Fears confirmed
Environmental protection associations had been fearing this day for months, due to the impact that the elimination of the Chevron doctrine may have in the power of officials at the environmental agency (EPA) and in hundreds of regulations, such as those promulgated in recent months by the Biden Administration, which are considered the most ambitious in the history of the country to face the climate emergency while time is running out to stop it.
From now on, these regulations may be challenged by automobile companies or polluting industries before courts in which the judges’ criteria will prevail. It is also expected that the Supreme Court ruling will accentuate a practice that in English is known as court shoppingan image that refers to the idea of going shopping in search of the desired federal magistrate, for example, for his conservative or global warming denialist stances, before whom to file the lawsuit to ensure success.
“The experience and knowledge of scientists, biologists, toxicologists and other experts are essential to enforcing wildlife, public health and environmental laws. The Supreme Court’s ruthless decision comes at the worst time,” says Collin O’Mara, executive director and president of National Wildlife Federation, organization in defense of nature. “This ruling overturns long-standing precedent and restricts the ability of federal agencies to protect public health, address pollution, and protect our waters and ecosystems.”
The decision that gave rise to the Chevron doctrine It is one of the most cited rulings in the history of the US Supreme Court. Since this Friday, it passed, along with sentences such as Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed federal protections for abortion, to swell the list of victims of the high court’s conservative supermajority, embarked on a crusade to shape American society in the mirror of its ideas.
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