The U.S. Supreme Court is now hearing a case that could end up stripping the federal government of a large amount of its power to force its agenda on Americans via regulations.
The case, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, was filed by herring fishermen in New England who are challenging the National Marine Fisheries Service’s authority over a regulation it recently that would require fishermen to pay for and maintain a monitoring device that pinpoints their location and actions at all times.
The fishing industry has estimated that the costs of complying with this new regulation are reducing their profits by a jobs-killing 20 percent.
Suppose the court finds in favor of the fishing industry. In that case, it will gut what is now called the 1984 “Chevron doctrine,” a concept whereby courts defer to federal regulators on questions that Congress has not passed legislation to govern.
According to Cornell Law: “In Chevron, the Supreme Court set forth a legal test as to when the court should defer to the agency’s answer or interpretation, holding that such judicial deference is appropriate where the agency’s answer was not unreasonable, so long as Congress had not spoken directly to the precise issue at question.”
Per The Blaze:
In layman’s terms, the Chevron Doctrine significantly empowers the federal government because in the absence of explicit statutory language (for which Congress is responsible), the courts defer to the executive branch’s “reasonable” statutory interpretation.
Unsurprisingly, those interpretations almost always favor the federal government, because the definition of “reasonable” has been stretched beyond reason.
The potential implications of Loper Bright cannot be ignored because the government stands to lose a significant amount of power.
It is not presumed that the SCOTUS will completely overturn Chevron. However, if the court narrows the way the doctrine is observed, it will take a lot of power away from federal regulators in all cases across the board, not just in the fishing industry.
Here’s hoping that the SCOTUS rules as strictly as possible to take away the government’s power to ruin our lives with overweening, politically motivated, fake regulations.
Cross-Posted with iPatriot
