On Friday morning, while networks from Newsmax to MSNBC were reporting on President Biden’s spectacular failure on the CNN debate stage the night before, the U.S. Supreme Court quietly set off the Hiroshima of decisions.
It defanged the power of federal agencies.
The high court ruled 6-3 in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine was over, which gave deference to federal agency interpretations of statutory law.
Although the landmark 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council was applauded by conservatives at the time, agencies have made some screwball, bone-headed interpretations since then.
The EPA, for example, claimed that a backyard pond was a navigable waterway subject to federal regulation because the property was close to (but not fronting) an actual navigable waterway.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley observed that up until Friday’s decision, the Chevron case "has been the Holy Grail for those who oppose the administrative state."
He added, "It is also a victory for Trump whose appointees put the Court over the top in taking down Chevron."
Turley also argued that Chevron violated James Madison’s view a tripartite government in which each branch was limited to its constitutional authority.
After Chevron the executive branch both administered the law and interpreted it.
"I have long been a critic of the case because I felt that it undermined the Madisonian system," Turley said.
"Courts will now perform their constitutional and traditional function in review."
In the case of Loper Bright, the National Marine Fisheries Service ruled that herring fishermen were required to pay the costs of carrying federal observers on board their vessels to monitor them for overfishing and to collect data on each day’s catch.
Talk about a bone-headed administrative decision. The agency wanted the commercial fishermen to take agency cops on board and pay their wages and costs.
Those costs were estimated at $710 per day.
The Supreme Court issued another decision a few weeks ago based on another bone-headed agency interpretation of the law, in which the ATF ruled that a semi-automatic rifle equipped with a bump stock met the statutory definition of a machine gun.
Newsmax contributor Cam Edwards, who is an editor at Bearing Arms, a popular Second Amendment news and opinion site, foresees other ATF interpretations being struck down as a result of Friday’s decision, including how it defines firearm dealers.
In April the ATF expanded the definition of persons "Engaged in the Business" as a Dealer in Firearms, forcing casual sellers of arms to become a Federal Firearms Licensee and run his occasional sale through the federal background check system.
There have also been a flurry of new regulations coming from the administrative state over climate change concerns.
- But do they implement existing federal law?
- Are they an over-interpretation of existing law?
- Or do they amount to wholly new law?
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network and also a Newsmax contributor, observed that the process was all pretty simple as it’s laid out in the Constitution — the blueprint for the federal government.
"This is a Court that cares about the separate but coequal branches of government doing what they are supposed to do," she said in response to Friday’s ruling.
The legislative branch makes the laws, the executive branch implements the laws, and the Judicial branch interprets the laws. And the size of the executive branch has exploded while the other two branches have remained fairly constant.
Today there are a total of 15 federal executive branch departments, consisting of 438 agencies and sub-agencies, manned by nearly 2.9 million employees, all paid for by the American taxpayer.
While Friday’s decision isn’t likely to reduce the size of the administrative state, it may cut them down to size in another way, by keeping them out of the business of the other two branches of government.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.
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