‘The court has opened the floodgates to allow big corporations and private interests to object and challenge commonsense rules that protect our air, water, land, environment, food, medicines, labor, and children.’
The far right in the United States has been pushing for decades to impose its agenda on the country, and its strategy has included getting control of the Supreme Court and bringing cases to the court aimed at limiting government’s ability to regulate business, so as to increase profits.
A pair of recent 6-3 decisions by the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court could have a tremendous negative impact on many aspects of our lives, from the safety of food, water and medicines to labor protections and how our children are educated.
One of the decisions, in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, overturned the so-called Chevron deference doctrine. The Chevron doctrine was a precedent set by the Supreme Court in the Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council case in 1984. It provided that, in cases where government regulations were being challenged in court and the law involved was ambiguous, the courts should defer to the regulatory agency’s interpretation of the law, so long as the interpretation is reasonable. The assumption was that the agency has capacity and expertise in the subject matter that the courts lack.
Responding to the ruling overturning the Chevron doctrine in a Common Dreams article, consumer advocate Ralph Nader said, “The courts don’t have anywhere near the budgets, staff and expertise necessary to interpret hyper-technical regulatory statutes. What the Supreme Court has done is to provide an open invitation for corporate lawyers to so delay agency actions as to diminish them with settlements that are little more than exhortations.”
Justice Elana Kagan opposed the majority ruling in Loper Bright, and she wrote in her dissent, “The majority’s decision today will cause a massive shock to the legal system, casting doubt on many settled constructions of statutes and threatening the interests of many parties who have relied on them for years.”
Another recent Supreme Court ruling, in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, dovetails with the Loper Bright decision. In the Corner Post case, the court decided that the statute of limitations period does not begin until a plaintiff is adversely affected by a regulation. This effectively extends the time during which corporations can sue government agencies over regulations.
Two Democrats in Congress, Jerry Nadler and Lou Correa, have introduced a bill to overturn the Corner Post decision. Nadler said that with this decision, “The court has opened the floodgates to allow big corporations and private interests to object and challenge commonsense rules that protect our air, water, land, environment, food, medicines, labor, and children.”
Corporate backing for these Supreme Court cases aimed at dismantling regulation is clear. In an article published in January in the New York Times, reporter Hiroko Tabuchi noted that the plaintiffs in the Loper Bright case got free legal help from lawyers who had the backing of petrochemicals billionaire Charles Koch.
Tabuchi wrote that the case “is one of the most consequential to come before the justices in years”, and that setting aside the Chevron doctrine “would very likely sharply limit the power of many federal agencies to regulate not only fisheries and the environment, but also health care, finance, telecommunications and other activities, legal experts say.”
Tabuchi quoted Jody Freeman, founder and director of the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program and a former Obama White House official, as saying the push to overturn Chevron is “connected to a much larger agenda, which is essentially to disable and dismantle federal regulation.”
Bob Lee is a professional journalist, writer and editor, and is co-editor of the People’s Tribune, serving as Managing Editor. He first started writing for and distributing the People’s Tribune in 1980, and joined the editorial board in 1987.
