The reactionary Supreme Court majority essentially eliminates expertise — scientific and otherwise — in matters requiring expertise, undermining future U.S. climate policy, as well as regulatory oversight of everything else in our daily lives.
The Court, led by conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, continues to elevate judicial activism to increasingly harmful heights. The infamous Dobbs decision rejecting the long-held precedent of a woman’s right to an abortion jeopardizes women’s health.
And now, with its rejection of the long-held Chevron precedent, the Court undermines government’s ability to regulate anything based on expertise specific to the matter at hand — “to name a few, keeping air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest,” wrote Elena Kagan in her blistering dissent.
The Chevron precedent was a win for conservatives
The 1984 Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council was a victory for the conservative Reagan Administration, favoring a revision to an Environmental Protection Agency air quality regulation the NRDC argued was flawed. In what became known as the “Chevron deference,” the Court at that time ruled, basically, agency expertise should guide policy, and countless regulations since were justified based on such expertise.
As Kagan wrote in her dissent of this recent case, “Some interpretive issues arising in the regulatory context involve scientific or technical subject matter. Agencies have expertise in those areas; courts do not.”
Hence, the “best available science” guidelines of environmental issues now will be determined by federal judges, not experts in the field. Critical regulations involving restoring salmon populations in the western U.S. and Alaska could be misinterpreted by judges who have no expertise in fisheries. Opponents to offshore wind energy — a critical link in the chain to reduce our dependence on coal-burning plants — only need find judges who would agree offshore turbines lead to whale deaths, but there is no evidence, scientific or otherwise, offshore turbines lead to whale deaths.
Judicial activism, prima facie
Activist justices make rulings based on their own views. Kagan pointedly noted in her dissent,”In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue — no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden–involving the meaning of regulatory law.
Kagan later adds, “A longstanding precedent at the crux of administrative governance thus falls victim to a bald assertion of judicial authority. The majority disdains restraint, and grasps for power.” The Roberts Court infamously redefined “wetlands” in its infamous 2023 Sacket v. EPA ruling.
See also: Activist Supreme Court supremely undermines role of wetlands in carbon sequestration
Until now, Kagan notes the Court “has upheld an agency’s reasonable interpretation of a statute at least 70 times….Lower courts have applied the Chevron framework on thousands upon thousands of occasions.”
Given Chevron’s pervasiveness in cases decided over the past 40 years, Kagan concludes, the Court’s ruling “is likely to produce large-scale disruption.”
The Court’s reactionary majority and its lifetime appointments may be with us for a while, but one thing is certain: the Supreme Court is always on the ballot.
