Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
With the exit of President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race and the subsequent rise of Vice President Kamala Harris as the practically de-facto Democratic nominee, young Democratic voters across social media reflect a sense of new hope. As a result, the long-reaching impacts of former President Trump’s Supreme Court picks seem to have faded into the background. It will be dangerous to let that fade continue, as recent controversial decisions swayed by those same picks will likely come to define a new era of federal government.
On June 28, 2024, the Chevron doctrine was struck down by the conservative-controlled United States Supreme Court. Most Americans had likely never heard of this doctrine, but, as shown by the horror emanating from political pundits resulting from this decision, the doctrine was essential to the average American’s life.
Under the doctrine, ambiguities in critical federal laws addressing issues including, but not limited to, environmental protections, medicinal safety measures, financial regulations, were left to be interpreted by experts working in federal agencies like the EPA and the FDA. With the elimination of Chevron, those same decisions will now be made by judges.
Taken at face value, that reality might not seem that concerning. If judges are set to make decisions on jail time and are charged with applying the law, why can’t they also interpret federal law? Well, it must first be noted that judges have never been involved in policy making, and this ruling tips the scales of the federal balance of power heavily towards the judiciary. And while judges are generally well qualified to interpret the law, relying on experts is critical for many politicized and pressing issues. Take for example, access to birth control. Previously, experts at the FDA found that the benefits of birth control access typically outweigh its potential medical detriments.
Now, judges in lower courts can use the lack of Chevron to strike down birth control access by claiming that it is not preventative care. Another place the lack of Chevron could manifest in strikingly detrimental ways is emergency federal response policy.
The majority of Americans can remember the need for immediate action when the COVID-19 pandemic came knocking on American’s door, and the lives lost as a result of slow and fragmented policy implementation on the part of the Trump administration. Without Chevron, courts could second-guess decisions made by the FDA to protect Americans from a similar crisis, further costing lives and endangering the safety of vulnerable communities.
Attacks on the powers of federal agencies are nothing new, but the loss of the Chevron doctrine spells a new frontier for those seeking to avoid complying with federal regulations and for those promulgating restrictive social policy agendas. Two years ago, in West Virginia v. E.P.A., the Court curtailed the agency’s authority to regulate climate-warming pollution from power plants. There, the Court ruled the EPA lacked the power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.
A new doctrine, called the major questions doctrine, has contributed to the reduction of federal agencies’ ability to function. This doctrine establishes a precedent in which courts get rid of economically significant regulations if judges rule that Congress was unclear in authorizing them. Under it, the current Republican majority has made it easier to sue agencies and strike down their rules. Even with Chevron, federal agencies only prevailed in 70% of the challenges leveraged against their policy implementations. Without it, agencies are not only checked in their power to implement policy, they are handcuffed.
As a result, behind the new hope of candidate Harris, a long shadow of the 45th presidential administration still looms. It is hard to say what the United States as a nation would look like had President Trump been unable to place three judges on the Supreme Court, but that uncertainty will likely weigh heavily on voters’ minds when they make their decisions at the ballot box.
Votes for a presidential candidate are not just votes for a four-year term, they are also votes for what kind of laws the Supreme Court will choose to strike down or uphold, and they are votes for what kind of federal judges are making decisions across the land, on decisions that will determine important issues like whether people should be able to access critical healthcare or whether to honor the implementation of important ballot provisions.
Even if Vice President Harris is successful in becoming the first woman in the Oval Office, her administration will be limited by this ruling, and as such the loss of the Chevron doctrine will likely live in legal infamy for many years to come.
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