Birds fly outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day the justices issued their orders in pending appeal cases on June 24, 2024 in Washington, U.S.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
“The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to make laws,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“After 40 years of deference to Chevron, the Supreme Court made clear today that our system of government has no room for unelected bureaucracies to monopolise this power,” McConnell said. “The days of federal agencies filling a legislative vacuum are well and truly over.”
“Today’s decision marks an important course correction that will help create a more predictable and stable regulatory environment,” Chamber CEO Suzanne Clark said in a statement.
Clark added that the Supreme Court’s previous Chevron decisions “allowed successive administrations to change regulations to advance their own political agendas and did not provide consistent rules for companies to chart a course, plan and invest for the future.”
Jeff Holmstead, an attorney at Bracewell Law and a former EPA aviation administrator, predicted in a statement that the ruling “will certainly change the way government agencies write regulations.”
Holmstead said that during the 40 years that the Chevron Principles were in place, regulators “would start with a regulatory program in mind, then try to come up with a plausible interpretation of existing law to justify it, and hope that a court would find it ‘permissible.'”
“Going forward, they’re going to have to start with the statutory language and determine what Congress actually wanted,” he said.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) told Fox News that the new decision in Roper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo “is a major victory for the American people, our constitutional government and the rule of law.”
“This is a major blow to the administrative state in Washington, D.C. — no one elects bureaucrats to make these decisions,” Cotton said of the decision, which overturns the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
People hold signs outside the US Supreme Court on June 28, 2024, where the verdict is scheduled to be handed down.
Anna Rose Layden | Reuters
Democrats, meanwhile, denounced the ruling, accusing the Supreme Court’s conservative majority of strengthening its own authority.
“By rejecting Chevron, the Trump-MAGA Supreme Court has once again sided with powerful special interests and giant corporations against the middle class and American families,” Senate Majority Whip Chuck Schumer (D-New York) said.
“Their outrageous attempt to overturn 40 years of precedent and impose their extreme views is appalling,” Schumer said.
“Today’s decision is further evidence that the Supreme Court’s far-right supermajority will ignore any precedent they wish to expand their own power and that of their MAGA allies across the country,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
