×

Morrisey proud of work leading to overturning of Chevron decision

(Capitol Notes - Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)

CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey – who has led efforts to lessen the control of the federal regulatory state – praised a U.S. Supreme Court decision Friday that gives Congress and the courts more say over executive branch regulations.

In a 6-3 decision Friday, the Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old prior Supreme Court decision – known as the Chevron decision – that gave more latitude to federal departments and agencies to institute regulations when laws passed by Congress are not clear.

A group of North Atlantic fishermen brought the case against the U.S. Department of Commerce after one of its agencies issued a rule requiring the businesses to pay a fee to cover the cost of inspectors from the National Marine Fisheries Service. A lower federal court cited the 1984 Supreme Court decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council that allowed for the agency to set the fee.

Friday’s ruling states that the courts cannot defer to federal departments and agencies for interpretation when laws are ambiguous, requiring courts to determine whether a federal department of agency is acting within the statutory authority granted to it by Congress.

“At best, our intricate Chevron doctrine has been nothing more than a distraction from the question that matters: does the statute authorize the challenged agency action,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, writing the opinion for the majority.

“Once more, the basic nature and meaning of a statute does not change just because the agency has happened to be involved,” Roberts continued. “Four decades after its inception, Chevron has thus become an impediment, rather than an aid, to accomplishing the basic judicial task of ‘say[ing] what the law is.'”

Justice Elena Kagan, penning the dissent on behalf of Justices Sonia Sotomayer and Ketanji Brown Jackson, said the decision by the majority “flips the script” by taking power away from executive branch agencies and puts it into the hands of the federal judiciary.

“A rule of judicial humility gives way to a rule of judicial hubris,” Kagan wrote. “In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue – no matter how expertise-drive or policy-laden – involving the meaning of regulatory law. As if it did not have enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar.”

Both the majority opinion and the dissent cite the 2022 West Virginia vs. EPA decision by the Supreme Court and argued by the state Attorney General’s Office. In that 6-3 decision, the majority of Supreme Court justices determined the Environmental Protection Agency overstepped its authority in how it regulates greenhouse gas emissions, siding with West Virginia that the EPA overstepped its congressional authority.

“The U.S. Supreme Court made the right decision to revisit and overrule the Chevron doctrine, a misguided doctrine under which courts defer to legally dubious interpretations of statutes put out by federal administrative agencies,” Morrisey said in a statement Friday. “Congress’s words matter, not agencies’ policy preferences. And agencies shouldn’t be permitted to take advantage of statutory silence or ambiguity to extend their powers beyond what Congress intended.”

In an earlier decision, the Supreme Court previously blocked the Clean Power Plan rule in 2016, first proposed under former president Barack Obama, preventing the rule from taking effect. The rule would have given expansive powers to the EPA to regulate the carbon dioxide emissions of coal-fired power plants. Morrisey led a 27-state coalition to secure the 2016 stay of the Clean Power Plan.

Morrisey said he was proud that previous cases argued by his office before the Supreme Court helped lead to Friday’s decision overturning the Chevron doctrine.

“For too long, though, the Chevron doctrine has empowered agencies to do just that. This needs to stop,” Morrisey said. “When people think about the major problems of the administrative state, Chevron deference should be at or near the top of the list. We are proud to have helped beat it back.”

Steven Allen Adams can be reached at sadams@newsandsentinel.com

Starting at $2.99/week.

Subscribe Today