TITLE: What it means for the Supreme Court to block enforcement of the EPA’s ‘good neighbor’ pollution rule
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-epa-good-neighbor-air-pollution-ea23421c78999293267339faf4453cdb
EXCERPT: The EPA’s “good neighbor” rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution.
Three energy-producing states — Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia — challenged the rule, along with the steel industry and other groups, calling it costly and ineffective.
The Supreme Court put the rule on hold while legal challenges continue, the conservative-led court’s latest blow to federal regulations.
The high court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, has increasingly reined in the powers of federal agencies, including the EPA, in recent years. The justices have restricted EPA’s authority to fight air and water pollution, including a landmark 2022 ruling that limited EPA’s authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming.
The court is also weighing whether to overturn its 40-year-old Chevron decision, which has been the basis for upholding a wide range of regulations on public health, workplace safety and consumer protections.
TITLE: Supreme Court ruling kneecaps federal regulators
https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/28/24180118/supreme-court-chevron-deference-decision-opinion
EXCERPT: On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned a long-standing legal doctrine in the US, making a transformative ruling that could hamper federal agencies’ ability to regulate all kinds of industry. Six Republican-appointed justices voted to overturn the doctrine, called Chevron deference, a decision that could affect everything from pollution limits to consumer protections in the US.
Chevron deference allows courts to defer to federal agencies when there are disputes over how to interpret ambiguous language in legislation passed by Congress. That’s supposed to lead to more informed decisions by leaning on expertise within those agencies. By overturning the Chevron doctrine, the conservative-dominated SCOTUS decided that judges ought to make the call instead of agency experts.
“Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do,” Chief Justice John Roberts writes in his opinion.
The decision effectively strips federal agencies of a tool they’ve been able to use to take action on pressing issues while Congress tries to catch up with new laws. Chevron deference has come up, for instance, in efforts to use the 1970 Clean Air Act to prevent the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Overturning it is a big win for lobbyists and anyone else who might want to make it harder to crack down on industry through federal regulation.
“It would really unleash a kind of chaotic period of time where federal courts are deciding what they think all these laws mean. And that can lead to a lot of inconsistency and confusion for agencies and for regulated parties,” Jody Freeman, director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard, previously told The Verge when SCOTUS heard oral arguments over Chevron deference in January.
TITLE: The Supreme Court just lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies
https://www.vox.com/scotus/357554/supreme-court-sec-jarkesy-roberts-sotomayor-chaos
EXCERPT: On Thursday, the Court handed down a 6-3 decision, on a party-line vote, that could render a simply astonishing array of federal laws unenforceable. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in dissent, “the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress.”
The dispute in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy turns on whether a hedge fund manager accused of defrauding investors is entitled to a jury trial to determine whether he violated federal securities law, or whether the government acted properly when it tried him before an official known as an “administrative law judge” (ALJ).
The charges against this hedge fund manager, George Jarkesy, are civil and not criminal, which matters because the Constitution treats civil trials very differently from criminal proceedings. While the Sixth Amendment provides that “in all criminal prosecutions” the defendant is entitled to a jury trial, the Seventh Amendment provides a more limited jury trial right, requiring them “in suits at common law” (more on what that means later).
Some of these laws, including the one allowing the SEC to bring enforcement actions against people like Jarkesy, give the government a choice. That is, they allow federal agencies to bring a proceeding either before an ALJ or before a federal district court that may conduct a jury trial. So the SEC, at least, has the option of retrying Jarkesy in a district court.
But, as Sotomayor warns, many federal agencies — including the “Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Department of Agriculture, and many others” — may only seek civil penalties in administrative proceedings. That means that a wide array of laws guaranteeing workplace safety and advancing other important federal goals could cease to function after Jarkesy.
The Jarkesy case, in other words, is an example of the Roberts Court at its most arrogant. Were the Court tasked with resolving the dispute on a blank slate, then there are entirely plausible arguments that Mr. Jarkesy should be entitled to a jury trial. But that ship sailed many years ago, and the federal government has operated for an exceedingly long time on the assumption that many disputes can be adjudicated by ALJs.
By upending this longstanding assumption, the Court may have just thrown huge swaths of the federal government — particularly enforcement by those agencies Sotomayor listed — into chaos.
SEE ALSO:
Supreme Court overturns ex-mayor’s bribery conviction, narrowing the scope of public corruption law
https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-public-corruption-bribery-89774f1e3cd6f1a353718b7ce3ff18a0
SCOTUS Restricts Criminal Charge Of Interference With Official Proceeding Under Statute Used Against J6 Defendants
https://legalinsurrection.com/2024/06/scotus-restricts-criminal-charge-of-interference-with-official-proceeding-under-statute-used-against-j6-defendants/
U.S. Supreme Court Narrows The Obstruction Charges Against J6 Capitol Rioters And Trump
https://www.tampafp.com/u-s-supreme-court-narrows-the-obstruction-charges-against-j6-capitol-rioters-and-trump/
The Supreme Court says cities can punish people for sleeping in public places
https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-06-28/the-supreme-court-says-cities-can-punish-people-for-sleeping-in-public-places
Supreme Court allows cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside, even if shelter space is lacking
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2024/06/28/homeless-space/
The supreme court abortion ruling hides conservative justices’ partisan agenda
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/28/supreme-court-abortion-ruling-conservative-justices
Supreme Court’s Abortion Rulings May Set the Stage for More Restrictions
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/28/us/politics/supreme-court-abortion.html
For some reason, Americans see the Supreme Court as driven by ideology
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/27/supreme-court-public-opinion/