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I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we w

I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. I wouldn't want the default assumption of the courts to be that when the law is unclear, whatever the sheriff or the highway patrol decides is illegal this month is, and next month or next election it could be something else entirely. In such cases I would absolutely want the courts to evaluate that ambiguity by treating both sides of the argument equally and weighing the law as it stands. So it seems like it should be the same when it comes to regulatory rule making as well. If the law is unclear, deferring to the enforcers of that law seems no different than deferring to the cops. The court system and the government as a whole is already institutionally biased towards the government, without any need for an explicit policy to prefer the government's side.

autoexec 2y ago
> I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. I doubt it. I think most people have some federal agency they aren't a huge fan of. Sure, the fact that Chevron helped to allow the EPA keep your air and water from being poisoned by greedy corporations who would do it in a second if it would make them more money helps to make it a more sympathetic cause, but it's not as if people aren't aware that the defense applied to every other agency too. > I wouldn't want the default assumption of the courts to be that when the law is unclear, whatever the sheriff or the highway patrol decides is illegal this month is That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the police were doing would have to reach the court in the first place, then the court would have to determine that an ambiguity in the law existed, and then the court would have to decide if the interpretation of the law that the police has been using is reasonable and only if it wasn't would the court impose its own interpretation. That seems pretty fair even in the case of the police. It's not about deferring to the enforcers of that law. It's about deferring to the law first, and only imposing a narrower interpretation if the enforcers of that law were already out of line. It just means that agencies aren't limited to the most narrow interpretation of the law as written.
- tpmoney 2y ago
  >That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the police were doing would have to reach the court in the first place, then the court would have to determine that an ambiguity in the law existed, and then the court would have to decide if the interpretation of the law that the police has been using is reasonable and only if it wasn't would the court impose its own interpretation. That seems pretty fair even in the case of the police. There are of course federal policing agencies, such as the DEA, ATF and FBI, but it doesn't matter because the point wasn't about federal agencies as such. It was about deferring to the enforcers of a law about what the limits of their powers are, which just seems like a terrible idea at all levels of government. Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties? I have no doubt they would say so, and absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? If the secret service started shutting down cell towers within a 10 mile radius of presidential rallies, well that's just common sense protection against remote explosives and well within their directive to protect the president right? They are the experts on this after all and have wide latitude to do what's necessary. No need for the courts to review that action or the laws surrounding it.
  - autoexec 2y ago
    > Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties?....Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. > absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? The courts are! They always have been, even under Chevron. If at any point a judge thought that the FBI, ATF, DEA, NSA, or <insert three letter agency here> interpreted the law unreasonably, or extended their authority beyond what was allowed that judge had the power under Chevron to impose the court's own interpretation of the law on that agency. The Chevron defense said that if the court agreed that an agency had an interpretation of an ambiguous law which was reasonable and permissible the court couldn't impose a more narrow standard on them. Because it's been overturned it now doesn't matter if the court thinks that what the agency was doing was reasonable and permissible, the court can inject it's own interpretation anyway. Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. That's it. Now that protection is gone and I promise that it's not going to make you more free or better off. It means that any and all of the rights and protections you have today thanks to federal agencies are at risk of going away as soon as a case goes in front of an activist judge
rayiner 2y ago
That’s a good example, but it goes even deeper than that. Chevron itself was a case that reversed a judgment in favor of an environmental organization written by Ruth Bader Ginsberg (when she was a D.C. Circuit judge), and siding with the Reagan EPA.
EasyMark 2y ago
I don't think people will appreciate it when they have to buy bottled water because all the aquifers and lakes are full of heavy metals from manufacturing upstream. It really is part of Project 2025 and has been in the works for a while now. If they don't like the bureaucracy, Congress has full powers to remove it there was no reason to gut all regulation so they can be tied up indefinitely in court and our courts are overwhelmed by challenges so that every decision takes 15 years to work its way through court.
skissane 2y ago
> I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. In the original context of the 1984 Chevron case, environmentalists were arguing that the EPA had redefined "source" in an overly narrow way, much narrower than Congress had originally intended in passing the Clean Air Act, thereby enabling companies to emit more air pollution. The Chevron decision was seen at the time as a loss for environmentalists and win for the corporate sector and conservatives. It's funny how the tables have turned – a decision which was originally praised by conservatives and condemned by liberals and environmentalists, eventually ends being condemned and overturned by conservatives, while being defended by liberals and environmentalists. Both the 1984 case and the 2024 case had a conservative majority, and were perceived at the time as furthering conservative political objectives. I think what's really happened: in 1984, the federal judiciary was widely perceived as liberal-dominated, while the federal bureaucracy was seen as relatively more conservative, so liberals wanted the judiciary to be more powerful than the bureaucracy, conservatives wanted the opposite. In 2024, the situation is reversed: now the federal judiciary is perceived as being increasingly dominated by conservatives, while the federal bureaucracy is viewed as being more liberal, so now liberals want to defend the bureaucracy's power against judicial encroachment. It looks to me like the only thing that's constant here – on both sides – is "the ends justify the means".
ymck 2y ago
I'd just love to see them keep this same energy when dealing with the actual police and end qualified immunity. They won't. But it would be the right thing to do.

autoexec 2y ago

> I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. I doubt it. I think most people have some federal agency they aren't a huge fan of. Sure, the fact that Chevron helped to allow the EPA keep your air and water from being poisoned by greedy corporations who would do it in a second if it would make them more money helps to make it a more sympathetic cause, but it's not as if people aren't aware that the defense applied to every other agency too. > I wouldn't want the default assumption of the courts to be that when the law is unclear, whatever the sheriff or the highway patrol decides is illegal this month is That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the police were doing would have to reach the court in the first place, then the court would have to determine that an ambiguity in the law existed, and then the court would have to decide if the interpretation of the law that the police has been using is reasonable and only if it wasn't would the court impose its own interpretation. That seems pretty fair even in the case of the police. It's not about deferring to the enforcers of that law. It's about deferring to the law first, and only imposing a narrower interpretation if the enforcers of that law were already out of line. It just means that agencies aren't limited to the most narrow interpretation of the law as written.

tpmoney 2y ago
>That isn't a fair characterization of the situation. Even forgiving that the police aren't a federal agency, first a question around the legality of what the police were doing would have to reach the court in the first place, then the court would have to determine that an ambiguity in the law existed, and then the court would have to decide if the interpretation of the law that the police has been using is reasonable and only if it wasn't would the court impose its own interpretation. That seems pretty fair even in the case of the police. There are of course federal policing agencies, such as the DEA, ATF and FBI, but it doesn't matter because the point wasn't about federal agencies as such. It was about deferring to the enforcers of a law about what the limits of their powers are, which just seems like a terrible idea at all levels of government. Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties? I have no doubt they would say so, and absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? If the secret service started shutting down cell towers within a 10 mile radius of presidential rallies, well that's just common sense protection against remote explosives and well within their directive to protect the president right? They are the experts on this after all and have wide latitude to do what's necessary. No need for the courts to review that action or the laws surrounding it.
- autoexec 2y ago
  > Was the FBI spying (and more) on civil rights leaders part of their powers as federal law enforcement officers executing their duties?....Surely we should defer to them as they're the experts in their field right? It's a fantasy to think that this will mean state spying powers will be reduced. > absent a specific law from congress telling them they couldn't, who is to argue that they were unreasonable? The courts are! They always have been, even under Chevron. If at any point a judge thought that the FBI, ATF, DEA, NSA, or <insert three letter agency here> interpreted the law unreasonably, or extended their authority beyond what was allowed that judge had the power under Chevron to impose the court's own interpretation of the law on that agency. The Chevron defense said that if the court agreed that an agency had an interpretation of an ambiguous law which was reasonable and permissible the court couldn't impose a more narrow standard on them. Because it's been overturned it now doesn't matter if the court thinks that what the agency was doing was reasonable and permissible, the court can inject it's own interpretation anyway. Chevron prevented the court from forcing the most narrow interpretation of the law on a federal agency in cases where the court couldn't justify doing it. That's it. Now that protection is gone and I promise that it's not going to make you more free or better off. It means that any and all of the rights and protections you have today thanks to federal agencies are at risk of going away as soon as a case goes in front of an activist judge

rayiner 2y ago

That’s a good example, but it goes even deeper than that. Chevron itself was a case that reversed a judgment in favor of an environmental organization written by Ruth Bader Ginsberg (when she was a D.C. Circuit judge), and siding with the Reagan EPA.

EasyMark 2y ago

I don't think people will appreciate it when they have to buy bottled water because all the aquifers and lakes are full of heavy metals from manufacturing upstream. It really is part of Project 2025 and has been in the works for a while now. If they don't like the bureaucracy, Congress has full powers to remove it there was no reason to gut all regulation so they can be tied up indefinitely in court and our courts are overwhelmed by challenges so that every decision takes 15 years to work its way through court.

skissane 2y ago

> I feel like if instead of deferring to the EPA, the Chevron case was deferring to police departments interpretations of the law when the law was ambiguous, we would be cheering this decision as a return to sanity. In the original context of the 1984 Chevron case, environmentalists were arguing that the EPA had redefined "source" in an overly narrow way, much narrower than Congress had originally intended in passing the Clean Air Act, thereby enabling companies to emit more air pollution. The Chevron decision was seen at the time as a loss for environmentalists and win for the corporate sector and conservatives. It's funny how the tables have turned – a decision which was originally praised by conservatives and condemned by liberals and environmentalists, eventually ends being condemned and overturned by conservatives, while being defended by liberals and environmentalists. Both the 1984 case and the 2024 case had a conservative majority, and were perceived at the time as furthering conservative political objectives. I think what's really happened: in 1984, the federal judiciary was widely perceived as liberal-dominated, while the federal bureaucracy was seen as relatively more conservative, so liberals wanted the judiciary to be more powerful than the bureaucracy, conservatives wanted the opposite. In 2024, the situation is reversed: now the federal judiciary is perceived as being increasingly dominated by conservatives, while the federal bureaucracy is viewed as being more liberal, so now liberals want to defend the bureaucracy's power against judicial encroachment. It looks to me like the only thing that's constant here – on both sides – is "the ends justify the means".

ymck 2y ago

I'd just love to see them keep this same energy when dealing with the actual police and end qualified immunity. They won't. But it would be the right thing to do.