This Supreme Court Decision Might be More Impactful Than the November Election DAVID BLACKMON
In the coming years, the impacts to energy and climate policy from the recission of the Chevron Deference could become every bit as impactful as a second Trump presidency. It’s a very big
This Supreme Court Decision Might be More Impactful Than the November Election
JUN 28
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PAID
Over the past three and a half years, I’ve advised clients and colleagues to cool their jets about the inevitability of globalist elites succeeding in forcing a rapid, premature transition away from an oil, natural gas, and coal-based energy system to one based on subsidized alternatives like wind, solar, and electric vehicles. The reason for the advice has been pretty simple: The entire energy transition initiative is based in politics, not in science, and the political pendulum swings, often quickly and radically.
We’ve already seen that happening in Europe in recent elections in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, and to the EU Parliament. In all those elections, as well as the coming elections in places like the UK, France, and Canada, overreaching energy and climate policies played a major role in what has amounted to significant voter revolts.
In the United States, the complete self-destruction by Joe Biden in his debate against Donald Trump Thursday evening signals an increased likelihood of a looming major pendulum swing come November, one that will have major implications related to energy and climate policies. But less than 12 hours after that debate concluded, the US Supreme Court published a 6-3 decision in the Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo case, one that will almost certainly become its most impactful decision in recent years.
The key element of this decision is the overturning of the so-called Chevron Deference, a legal doctrine established by the court in a 1984 case involving US oil major Chevron. This doctrine directs federal courts to defer to the legal judgment of federal regulatory agencies when they claim the language in governing laws passed by congress is vague and open to interpretation. The result of this doctrine has been to render courts reluctant to rule against regulators, even when their regulations clearly fall outside the original intent and scope of the governing statutes.
“If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for a 6-0 court in the 1984 opinion, as reported by the Wall Street Journal. But “if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue,” Justice Stevens said that courts should defer to “reasonable interpretations” by the governing agency. Unfortunately, unelected bureaucrats eager to expand the scope of their political powers have too often rendered interpretations that were in no way reasonable and which fall far outside the original intent of congress.
Since its enshrinement into the legal process, the Chevron Deference has since been used as the major enabler of the vast expansion of the regulatory and administrative state by the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations. Whenever we hear Mr. Trump and other Republicans refer to the vast scope of the “shadow government,” they’re referring to a monstrosity whose creation could not have taken place without the Chevron Deference in place.
Nowhere has the expansion of the regulatory state become more bloated than in the realm of energy and climate policy. In the Biden presidency alone, companies attempting to do business in the US have been subjected to a withering array of complex new regulations from the EPA, the Bureau of Land Management, FERC, and other agencies that increasingly inhibit their ability to be profitable in this country.
Here’s one to think about: Justice Stevens was also the author of the 2007 decision in the Massachusetts v. EPA case in which a 5-4 Supreme Court gave EPA the authority to regulate carbon dioxide, i.e., plant food, as a pollutant under the Clean Air Act. That decision has served as the very foundation for every aspect of expansive climate policy that has followed.
The Loper Bright case involved an onerous requirement by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) under the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which required commercial fishing vessels to carry federal monitors on board to enforce regulations aimed at preventing overfishing. But more than just allow the monitors aboard their boats, the NMFS rule required the commercial fishermen to foot the bill for their presence. The cost paid for the monitors often came to more than the wages being earned by the fishermen and their crews, a requirement that had little relationship, if any, to the intent and scope of the law.
It would be hard to overestimate the potential long-term implications of this ruling. In the coming years, the impacts to energy and climate policy from the recission of the Chevron Deference could become every bit as impactful as a second Trump presidency. It’s a very big
Great news! However I'm reminded of my Irish Grandmothers advice, "there's many a slip between cup and lip".
Great summary - this is going to be a big blow to big agency! I also have a piece on the Chevron ruling at my substack here: https://thejoulethief.substack.com/p/caught-in-the-net