What’s Next After Supreme Court Curbs Regulatory Power: More Focus on Laws’ Wording, Less on their Goals

The Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce means that federal courts will have the final say on what an ambiguous federal statute means. What’s not clear is whether most courts will still listen to expert federal agencies in determining which interpretations make the most sense.

The U.S. administrative state does not merely protect Americans against those threats that we are unable to protect ourselves from on our own. It is essential to a healthy economy, it provides a crucial platform for democratic self-government, and it functions as a great social equalizer. All of this is now at risk after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives issued four separate decisions largely along ideological lines aimed at eviscerating this crucial institution. The administrative state has been built over the course of nearly 250 years, slowly and pragmatically, since the founding; it has taken just three decision days for the Court to undo much of that work.

The American public is lucky to have the federal administrative state. Every day, it protects all of us from harms like heavily polluted air, consistently contaminated drinking water, and dangerous workplaces. It strengthens our democracy. And it ensures a fairer, healthier, and more inclusive economy. The good news is that the self-aggrandizing U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce does not change that. And that is because it cannot change that.

Earlier this week, the conservative House Republican Study Committee (RSC) issued a memo on how the party’s lawmakers should respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s pending decisions in a pair of cases called Loper Bright v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. In these cases, the Court is considering whether to overturn a 40-year-old legal doctrine called Chevron deference, which guides reviewing courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of their statutory authority when relevant provisions are unclear.

Months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an “emergency” request to stay EPA’s new rule regulating interstate air pollution. Like most observers, I was puzzled that the Court was bothering with the case before the D.C. Circuit even had a chance to consider the merits of the challenges. Months later, the Court has finally granted the stay, over a strong dissent from Justice Barrett. EPA may be able to fix the problem with this rule very quickly, and the opinion — at least on first reading — doesn’t seem to carry broad implications for other environmental litigation.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed June 24 to hear a case about whether environmental impact statements need to address climate change. To read the arguments made about the case, you’d think that this was a common law area where courts establish the rules. But as I discuss in a forthcoming article, recent amendments have put a lot of flesh on the previously barebones law. The bottom line: The Supreme Court shouldn’t give advocates of narrowing the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) a victory that they were unable to get through the legislative process.

Duke Energy, North Carolina’s monopoly electricity provider, is currently undergoing one of the largest utility-led fossil fuel expansions in the entire country. Though the corporation publicly touts its carbon reduction climate goals, its investments in natural gas are leading to burning a “super pollutant” gas – methane – that is 86 times more harmful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat and warming the environment.

Deep in the heart of state and regional environmental and energy agencies, engineers, economists, scientists, and lawyers are working hard to develop comprehensive climate action plans (CCAPs). Created by the Inflation Reduction Act, EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant (CPRG) program is funding a range of state and subnational planning and implementation measures, including the CCAPs, which are due in 2025. In our recent issue brief, Comprehensive Climate Action Plans: What’s a Greenhouse Gas Reduction “Measure”?, we explore a key question: What is the nature of the “actions” that planners should include in their climate action plans? Or, to use the program’s term, what’s a climate “measure?”

States like California face sobering budget shortfalls, and their governors and legislatures are grappling with how and where to make cuts. These debates cast a spotlight on the critical importance of state budgets to an equitable clean energy future.