Supreme Court Decision Seizes Power to Decide Federal Regulations

By Charlene Crowell | Trice Edney Wire (TriceEdneyWire.com) – The Supreme Court issued several consequential rulings in its recently concluded term. One such decision reversed a 40-year precedent commonly known as the Chevron doctrine, that gave federal agencies the authority to write rules that enforced and implemented laws passed by Congress. But on June 28, a sweeping majority opinion authored by& Chief Justice John Roberts& ignored judicial precedent to hold that only the courts would decide regulation. In the SCOTUS majority view, judges alone would now decide highly specialized rules crafted to maintain reliable consumer safety standards governing our food, public health, occupational safety, clean water, higher education and more, bypassing the high-level expertise of civil servants in affected agencies. Roberts’ opinion included: “Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do… Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.” For Black and Latino Americans, this power-grab by the court throws into doubt and potentially weakens current agency rules that sought to bring us closer to the nation’s promises of freedom and justice for all. In two particular areas – fair...