Schweitzer: SCOTUS Recent Overturn of Chevron Deference Creates Chaos

The current U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of several previous Supreme Court rulings has changed precedence that lower courts used to rule on legal disputes. Of particular concern is the Court’s recent overturning of the Chevron deference, which will create uncertainties for farmers and increase lawsuits since those considering legal challenges to policies no longer must yield to agencies’ interpretations of laws. 

The Chevron deference set precedence for lower courts to defer to experts in federal agencies in legal disputes. It was established when the Supreme Court sided in 1984 with President Reagan’s EPA vs the Natural Resource Defense Council. The NRDC had sued the EPA for inadequately enforcing the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the EPA. 

It was a landmark case that addressed judges inappropriately inserting themselves into policy decisions under the guise of interpreting the law thereby violating the principle of separation of powers, which is established in the U.S. Constitution. Congress writes the laws; the Executive Branch carries them out; and the Judiciary—including the Supreme Court—resolves arguments about what these laws mean and evaluates whether they’re being enforced properly. But the act of policymaking has always belonged to the two elected branches.  

Prior to these new rulings, Congress established a law with a goal. Agencies’ scientists and experts created rules to achieve the stated goal, and the courts held that these experts deserved deference in any lawsuit. By reversing the decision, the Supreme Court seized for both it and lower court judges a policymaking role that the Constitution did not intend for them.  

This new ruling will undermine the role of experts to implement laws that elected legislators want. This will allow corporate monopolies and their attorneys to seek favorable judges to challenge rules of oversight. It will create a chaotic system that disadvantages farmers, consumers, and the environment. Giving power to judges allowing them to set policy will cause inconsistencies and give corporations and others with high-powered attorneys the ability to manipulate oversights to their favor.

Judges shouldn’t act as lawmakers—or scientific experts. Just recently, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote nitrous oxide in his Ohio vs EPA opinion when he should have written nitrogen oxides. His confusing laughing gas with a greenhouse gas in an opinion, which would have been proofread by dozens of other attorneys prior to publication, demonstrates why this decision is no laughing matter.