Don't get your knickers too twisted up just yet.
First of all, this case does not negate the clean air act, clean water act, superfund, etc. It's going really most affect a very small percentage of situations where regulatory applicability is not otherwise clear.
Secondly, any potential drastic change in law / policy is going to be dragged out before implementation by individual lawsuits, changes in state and local law, and a tendency for regulators and permittees to take a wait and see attitude any time there's a major change.
How many environmental jobs were lost when Trump came in and tried to gut all sorts of regulatory programs? The answer is a very small number, if not a negative number.
So y'all need to relax, and wait and see how this shakes out. It will be at least ten years before the dust settles, and there's plenty of opportunities for the pendulum to swing the other way.
I appreciate the perspective. May be that I'm succumbing to the news' sensationalism but it does seem big and potentially impactful. I can appreciate that often it's these kinds of changes that bring us work in the consulting industry.
Concur with more work for environmental lawyers. Shift towards more environmental compliance positions to the federal judicial branch and fewer new hires for federal regulatory agencies. Doesn't make sense. Will over burden courts, and will likely need legislative fix that retains/restores regulatory control by the agencies.
As with everything in life, it’s never as bad, or as good, as it first seems.
Yes, Chevron allows agencies to go Bucky-wild with what they ask for and making consultants “prove a negative” about potential impacts no matter how unlikely the potential is, but it also protects permittees (and agencies) from spurious lawsuits from the “anti-growth anywhere” club who try and use the courts to slow down the inevitable by raising questions about process or agency interpretation of the LEPDA or species BOs, or Section 106 consultation.
So while agencies may not be officially allowed to ask for more data / studies, applicants who don’t pack the record may face court decisions from judges who themselves have an anti-development streak and no longer have to defer to agency’s sufficiency determinations.
Seems like it will be more common for companies to challenge agency rulings against them and bring every enforcement case to judges that is “pro business” and immediately have them stricken down
Not really addressing my point.. I understand there are going to be appeals but this ruling is going to result in a lot of agency decision being challenged in court that never would have been heard prior, and some of them will win
There’s a reason the case the court chose to hear was an innocent one like that. The result of this overturn of decades of precedent is going to be more pollution in our air and water. We’re going to have more activist judges like those on the Supreme Court blocking regulatory agencies from doing their job, protecting the public from toxic pollution being one example
No. The laws and regulations have not changed. ‘Their job’ has not changed. But when agencies make laws, the system is violated. The herring fishing case is the extreme example of just how far agencies had tipped the scales. The whole arm got cut off to save a finger nail.
Toxic pollution has not been green lighted. But agencies can no longer make the rules outside of the scope of the laws without possibly getting sued and knowing Chevron is not going to back them up.
The fix? Legislatures make new laws.
No. Courts have no place in supplanting federal agency policy with their preferred policy. Judges are not meant to legislate from the bench in our system. EPA has authority under various laws (Clean Air Act, RCRA, CERCLA) and under the authority of the executive branch to fulfill their mission as stated by law. The experts at EPA have a better idea of how to implement policies based on that law than random low level federal judges.
What the Chevron precedent held since 1984 was that a federal agencies are the bodies given the right to interpret ambiguous laws, as they have the resources and expertise to best determine a practical and sufficient policy. Courts were never meant to determine policy in our three branches of government, and they’re putting themselves straight into policy with this recent ruling.
“Now the Supreme Court has reopened the door for federal judges to decide how executive-branch agencies should go about their daily business whenever Congress has used ambiguous language, which, it should be noted, isn’t always unintentional. Sometimes Congress is purposefully inexplicit in order to give the subject-area experts space to decide how best to implement a regulation. For example, an agency made up of occupational safety specialists should already be well equipped to decide how to handle the technical, nuts-and-bolts aspects of imposing workplace protections—rules about equipment usage, say, or the need for periodic employee rest breaks—without the meddling of federal judges“
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-happens-if-supreme-court-ends-chevron-deference#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court's%20ruling,precedent%20of%20%E2%80%9CChevron%20deference.%E2%80%9D
Federal agencies only won about 70% of challenges to their rule making in the Chevron era. This is going to be a disaster of activist judges doing favors for their industry friends and making policy on scientific issues they know nothing about. Congress cannot possibly pass enough laws to spell out the way agencies should administer every policy, that’s a ridiculous pipe dream.
Agree technical people are closer to issues than judges and lawyers. But when federal agencies go too far and then cite Chevron as giving them authority to do what ever they want as they did to the herring fishing industry, this is what happens. Being an ‘expert’ in an agency does not give authority to promulgate law. Let Congress codify it to allow it.
Sorry, but that should be the way this works. Courts do not supplant policy. They give thumbs up or down when asked about things OUTSIDE the stated laws and promulgated regulations.
That’s not the way the system works. Congress cannot possibly codify the administrative procedures of over 430 federal agencies which are given their authority by thousands of laws. You have to understand how inefficient and unrealistic that is.
It sounds nice to say that elected lawmakers need to codify everything, doesn’t work in any practical sense though. Every environmental protection law will need to be rewritten with thousands and thousands of added pages to specific exactly how the rules need to be administered down to the letter or it can be challenged in court. It’s just not possible, the people actually working on those agencies are the only ones who know the specifics of how to administer these highly technical regulations.
In practice, without Chevron the courts can overturn almost anything a federal agency does. A very high price to pay for some fishers to not have to pay a bill to the regulator. It gives an Avenue to bypass federal regs actually, as a company like 3M can now challenge HOW EPA is enforcing the clean water act against them for putting PFAS in drinking water. Enjoy the additional poison in your soil water and air courtesy of our industry lackeys in the Supreme Court
A judge is just a lawyer, there are many highly technical scientific issues that they do not have the background knowledge to make a competent decision on. Whether a particular chemical belongs in groundwater past a particular concentration or not is a decision for a council of PhD scientists (primarily, working with the lawyers there of course) in EPA, not a fucking random federal judge. The specialists in the federal government were already very limited in how
Far they could go
Let the regulators regulate, don’t put judges in the way more than they already are only for the sake of spurious lawsuits brought on by opportunistic companies looking to save money at the expense of everyone else
I'm going to bring this up in my weekly team meeting tomorrow. I'm also curious what everyone is thinking.
Personally, I'm afraid. I'm applying for other positions as a precaution.
Unfortunately in the US and Europe, the trend seems to be away from climate and environmental initiatives. I am personally starting to network with other teams within my company to make a move later this year.
Agreed, I don’t see this helping our field. I’m going to be doing the same. As someone who doesn’t regularly meet with my superiors, I’m wondering how far up the chain to punt my questions lol.
If you regularly contact the agencies, you get emails with updates. I didn't get any on Friday, but I bet there will be some coming out this week. It will be pretty slow as we figure out how the table of cards is held together, as this ruling has been in place longer than the people working there.
It's gonna affect our job...I work in the regulatory side and I expect we'd have a discussion soon internally on what's going to happen next. This is going to make working / cleaning up sites / enforcing regulations harder.
I'm going to see 0.03 AF challenged ....
Hi again, because these laws didn’t spell out exactly how the agencies were to enforce the rules. Have you ever heard of a non-rule policy document? All of the intricacies of procedure that actually make the nuts and bolts of an agency like EPA or OSHA run, such as the process a polluter has to go through the obtain a permit are NOT codified.
Law gives them the authority to permit for a certain water emission, perhaps it specifies fees allowable and then the agency runs with that and makes the rules around it that the law doesn’t include.
There’s enough gray area in there that lawyers of large polluters can throw wrenches all over the place in favorable jurisdictions and get their wacko judge buddies to create real problems for the legal teams at the federal regulatory agencies. It’s going to take some time but this overturning is going to have broad and messy implications that are not primarily for the benefit of small local businesses like the fishers bringing the case
Don't get your knickers too twisted up just yet. First of all, this case does not negate the clean air act, clean water act, superfund, etc. It's going really most affect a very small percentage of situations where regulatory applicability is not otherwise clear. Secondly, any potential drastic change in law / policy is going to be dragged out before implementation by individual lawsuits, changes in state and local law, and a tendency for regulators and permittees to take a wait and see attitude any time there's a major change. How many environmental jobs were lost when Trump came in and tried to gut all sorts of regulatory programs? The answer is a very small number, if not a negative number. So y'all need to relax, and wait and see how this shakes out. It will be at least ten years before the dust settles, and there's plenty of opportunities for the pendulum to swing the other way.
I appreciate the perspective. May be that I'm succumbing to the news' sensationalism but it does seem big and potentially impactful. I can appreciate that often it's these kinds of changes that bring us work in the consulting industry.
This will bring work to the lawyers.
Concur with more work for environmental lawyers. Shift towards more environmental compliance positions to the federal judicial branch and fewer new hires for federal regulatory agencies. Doesn't make sense. Will over burden courts, and will likely need legislative fix that retains/restores regulatory control by the agencies.
As with everything in life, it’s never as bad, or as good, as it first seems. Yes, Chevron allows agencies to go Bucky-wild with what they ask for and making consultants “prove a negative” about potential impacts no matter how unlikely the potential is, but it also protects permittees (and agencies) from spurious lawsuits from the “anti-growth anywhere” club who try and use the courts to slow down the inevitable by raising questions about process or agency interpretation of the LEPDA or species BOs, or Section 106 consultation. So while agencies may not be officially allowed to ask for more data / studies, applicants who don’t pack the record may face court decisions from judges who themselves have an anti-development streak and no longer have to defer to agency’s sufficiency determinations.
Seems like it will be more common for companies to challenge agency rulings against them and bring every enforcement case to judges that is “pro business” and immediately have them stricken down
There’s nothing “immediate” about the federal court system.
Not really addressing my point.. I understand there are going to be appeals but this ruling is going to result in a lot of agency decision being challenged in court that never would have been heard prior, and some of them will win
Some of them SHOULD win. Like the plaintiffs in the herring industry.
There’s a reason the case the court chose to hear was an innocent one like that. The result of this overturn of decades of precedent is going to be more pollution in our air and water. We’re going to have more activist judges like those on the Supreme Court blocking regulatory agencies from doing their job, protecting the public from toxic pollution being one example
No. The laws and regulations have not changed. ‘Their job’ has not changed. But when agencies make laws, the system is violated. The herring fishing case is the extreme example of just how far agencies had tipped the scales. The whole arm got cut off to save a finger nail. Toxic pollution has not been green lighted. But agencies can no longer make the rules outside of the scope of the laws without possibly getting sued and knowing Chevron is not going to back them up. The fix? Legislatures make new laws.
No. Courts have no place in supplanting federal agency policy with their preferred policy. Judges are not meant to legislate from the bench in our system. EPA has authority under various laws (Clean Air Act, RCRA, CERCLA) and under the authority of the executive branch to fulfill their mission as stated by law. The experts at EPA have a better idea of how to implement policies based on that law than random low level federal judges. What the Chevron precedent held since 1984 was that a federal agencies are the bodies given the right to interpret ambiguous laws, as they have the resources and expertise to best determine a practical and sufficient policy. Courts were never meant to determine policy in our three branches of government, and they’re putting themselves straight into policy with this recent ruling. “Now the Supreme Court has reopened the door for federal judges to decide how executive-branch agencies should go about their daily business whenever Congress has used ambiguous language, which, it should be noted, isn’t always unintentional. Sometimes Congress is purposefully inexplicit in order to give the subject-area experts space to decide how best to implement a regulation. For example, an agency made up of occupational safety specialists should already be well equipped to decide how to handle the technical, nuts-and-bolts aspects of imposing workplace protections—rules about equipment usage, say, or the need for periodic employee rest breaks—without the meddling of federal judges“ https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-happens-if-supreme-court-ends-chevron-deference#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Supreme%20Court's%20ruling,precedent%20of%20%E2%80%9CChevron%20deference.%E2%80%9D Federal agencies only won about 70% of challenges to their rule making in the Chevron era. This is going to be a disaster of activist judges doing favors for their industry friends and making policy on scientific issues they know nothing about. Congress cannot possibly pass enough laws to spell out the way agencies should administer every policy, that’s a ridiculous pipe dream.
Agree technical people are closer to issues than judges and lawyers. But when federal agencies go too far and then cite Chevron as giving them authority to do what ever they want as they did to the herring fishing industry, this is what happens. Being an ‘expert’ in an agency does not give authority to promulgate law. Let Congress codify it to allow it. Sorry, but that should be the way this works. Courts do not supplant policy. They give thumbs up or down when asked about things OUTSIDE the stated laws and promulgated regulations.
That’s not the way the system works. Congress cannot possibly codify the administrative procedures of over 430 federal agencies which are given their authority by thousands of laws. You have to understand how inefficient and unrealistic that is. It sounds nice to say that elected lawmakers need to codify everything, doesn’t work in any practical sense though. Every environmental protection law will need to be rewritten with thousands and thousands of added pages to specific exactly how the rules need to be administered down to the letter or it can be challenged in court. It’s just not possible, the people actually working on those agencies are the only ones who know the specifics of how to administer these highly technical regulations. In practice, without Chevron the courts can overturn almost anything a federal agency does. A very high price to pay for some fishers to not have to pay a bill to the regulator. It gives an Avenue to bypass federal regs actually, as a company like 3M can now challenge HOW EPA is enforcing the clean water act against them for putting PFAS in drinking water. Enjoy the additional poison in your soil water and air courtesy of our industry lackeys in the Supreme Court
Make the Regulator Regulate. If business wins in court it just proves the regulator went to far.
A judge is just a lawyer, there are many highly technical scientific issues that they do not have the background knowledge to make a competent decision on. Whether a particular chemical belongs in groundwater past a particular concentration or not is a decision for a council of PhD scientists (primarily, working with the lawyers there of course) in EPA, not a fucking random federal judge. The specialists in the federal government were already very limited in how Far they could go Let the regulators regulate, don’t put judges in the way more than they already are only for the sake of spurious lawsuits brought on by opportunistic companies looking to save money at the expense of everyone else
I'm going to bring this up in my weekly team meeting tomorrow. I'm also curious what everyone is thinking. Personally, I'm afraid. I'm applying for other positions as a precaution.
Unfortunately in the US and Europe, the trend seems to be away from climate and environmental initiatives. I am personally starting to network with other teams within my company to make a move later this year.
Agreed, I don’t see this helping our field. I’m going to be doing the same. As someone who doesn’t regularly meet with my superiors, I’m wondering how far up the chain to punt my questions lol.
If you regularly contact the agencies, you get emails with updates. I didn't get any on Friday, but I bet there will be some coming out this week. It will be pretty slow as we figure out how the table of cards is held together, as this ruling has been in place longer than the people working there.
It's gonna affect our job...I work in the regulatory side and I expect we'd have a discussion soon internally on what's going to happen next. This is going to make working / cleaning up sites / enforcing regulations harder. I'm going to see 0.03 AF challenged ....
How does Chevron make enforcing regulations harder? Nothing has changed to the laws or 40CFR.
Hi again, because these laws didn’t spell out exactly how the agencies were to enforce the rules. Have you ever heard of a non-rule policy document? All of the intricacies of procedure that actually make the nuts and bolts of an agency like EPA or OSHA run, such as the process a polluter has to go through the obtain a permit are NOT codified. Law gives them the authority to permit for a certain water emission, perhaps it specifies fees allowable and then the agency runs with that and makes the rules around it that the law doesn’t include. There’s enough gray area in there that lawyers of large polluters can throw wrenches all over the place in favorable jurisdictions and get their wacko judge buddies to create real problems for the legal teams at the federal regulatory agencies. It’s going to take some time but this overturning is going to have broad and messy implications that are not primarily for the benefit of small local businesses like the fishers bringing the case