1984 Chevron’s Surreal Legacy Ended

Any WW II vet will tell you the most f’d up outfit is the US government so it’s a wonder why a Supreme Court 40 yrs ago gave federal bureaucracies huge leeway to interpret their own powers. No mas.

As WSJ’s Jess Bravin explained, the 6-3 decision along ideological lines, discards a 1984 precedent [see Chevron v Natural Resources Defense Council] directing federal courts to defer to agency legal interpretations when the statutory language passed by Congress is ambiguous.” As might be expected, the bureaucrats since regularly “saw ambiguity” on nearly every Congressional act involving environmental, consumer & workplace safety policies, among other areas. For years now, “conservative legal activists, Republican-led states & some business groups have argued” that Chevron has encouraged, if not allowed “agenda-driven regulators to push the limits of their power.” That power, it might be noted, was based largely on the ASSUMPTION that federal agencies always know best because they are so expert on the topics before it. Never mind that their “politicized views” might not only be wrong-headed but, in reality, in direct opposition to Congress’s original intent in passing a given law in question.

As Bravin notes, “By abandoning the doctrine [that’s come to be known as] Chevron deference, the justices have given parties unhappy with agency decisions more opportunities to overturn regulations by persuading federal judges that agency officials exceeded their authority.” In short, the agencies have to finally work when challenged and show they not only really know what they are doing but that it’s in a way Congress wanted them to operate.

Davd Soul