Depending, this upcoming Supreme Court decision could have far greater consequences than its abortion and gun control rulings, yet neither the media nor AOC will realize it (immediately)
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clean sweep?
[The case consists of whether], in 42 U.S.C. § 7411(d), an ancillary provision of the Clean Air Act, Congress constitutionally authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to issue significant rules — including those capable of reshaping the nation's electricity grids and unilaterally decarbonizing virtually any sector of the economy — without any limits on what the agency can require so long as it considers cost, nonair impacts and energy requirements.
Not the Bee: “In laymen's terms, the question is: Can the EPA undertake its own interpretation of federal statute and just kinda do whatever it thinks is right? Or does that authority rest only with Congress?
… [If] the Court rules that the EPA cannot simply delegate itself authority based on its own interpretation of federal law, it may very well extend to every other agency of the federal government—meaning that federal agencies may very well be hamstrung in their ability to do whatever they want.”
Here's what UCLA School of Law Prof. Blake Emerson said about it earlier this month:
Right now, we have a case before the court, West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency, that's really about the EPA's authority to address climate change. And essentially, the court is very skeptical that Congress should be able to give administrative bodies like the Environmental Protection Agency authority to make big policy decisions — to decide, "OK, do we want to regulate just specific power plants? Or do we want to regulate the entire electric grid?" And the court thinks that those decisions constitutionally have to be made by Congress because that's where the Constitution placed that power. And that is a fairly revolutionary doctrine.
I say “depending”, because the court might very well write a very narrow decision strictly confined to the particular facts of this case, and the broader issue will be deferred to another day, another fact pattern. But the court might strike down — or endorse — the power of regulatory agencies to effectively write their own laws. And that would be huuuge.
…. Second, the Fifth Circuit held that the Commission's statutory ability to opt to bring securities fraud actions within the agency violated the "non-delegation doctrine." The court concluded that Congress had delegated legislative power to the SEC by allowing the Commission to decide whether to bring enforcement actions in federal court or as administrative actions. The court further held that this delegation of power is unconstitutional because Congress has not provided guidance to the Commission with respect to how it should exercise that discretion.
