Fishers, who brought down four decades of Supreme Court precedent where judges were deferring to agency heads when laws were ambiguous, chided Democratic senators on Tuesday for trying to undermine the recent high court victory.
Jerry Leeman, CEO of the New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association, which filed a brief supporting other anglers in this term’s landmark Supreme Court battle, criticized the latest attempt by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Democrat, to codify Chevron deference into law.
Ms. Warren’s move comes after the GOP majority on the high court overturned a 40-year-old precedent in a pair of disputes known as the Chevron case. The justices ruled that courts should no longer defer to agencies’ interpretations of federal law where Congress is ambiguous, a principle known as Chevron deference. The challenge was brought by fishers contesting a federal rule making them pay for a monitor to accompany their boats.
“So-called expert bureaucrats approved the Vineyard Wind turbines that are falling apart in Senator Warren’s home state, spreading debris from Nantucket to Cape Cod. Fishermen have always known that offshore wind will be a disaster for our oceans. But alphabet soup agencies used Chevron deference to silence us,” said Mr. Leeman. “Without Chevron, fishermen finally have a chance to protect their jobs, heritage, communities and the marine environment from regulators and developers who are industrializing the ocean.”
The 1984 Chevron precedent, named after the case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, emerged from the council’s challenge to an Environmental Protection Agency interpretation of the “source” of air pollution. The ruling made it easier for factories to add facilities without undergoing the EPA review process.
At the time, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled in favor of the EPA, saying judges should defer to the authority Congress gives the agency to interpret and enforce its policy.
That standard was reversed last month, when fishers brought two cases — Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce — to challenge a 2020 federal rule that made them foot the bill for federal agencies to monitor their catch at a cost of $700 per day.
The fishers said the law, as written, didn’t envision any such payment requirement and the Commerce Department was illegally passing the compliance costs to the privately owned boats.
Lower courts sided with the feds. Citing the Chevron principle, they said bureaucrats’ actions must be given deference when the underlying law is unclear and an agency’s interpretation is considered reasonable.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said the 1984 Chevron ruling erroneously muted Congress and pushed courts to defer rather than to judge. He said it was time to restore the judging.
Liberals have disagreed with the ruling, saying agency heads should be the best experts to implement and interpret legislation.
Ms. Warren and 10 other Democratic senators moved Tuesday to undermine the high court’s ruling, announcing that their legislation — which had been introduced in the House in 2021 — would let agency heads carry out reasonable rulemaking instead of giving corporations the ability to influence the process.
“Giant corporations are using far-right, unelected judges to hijack our government and undermine the will of Congress,” said Ms. Warren. “The Stop Corporate Capture Act will bring transparency and efficiency to the federal rulemaking process and, most importantly, will make sure corporate interest groups can’t substitute their preferences for the judgment of Congress and the expert agencies.”
Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, said Ms. Warren’s bill is an end run around the Supreme Court’s move against “unaccountable federal agencies.”
“Sen. Warren and her band are trying to farm out their job of legislating to bureaucrats, making it easier to grow the size and scope of the federal government at the expense of Main Street. This likely unconstitutional bill shows once again that Democrats side with regulators over ordinary Americans,” she said.
Ms. Warren is not the only Democrat on Capitol Hill fighting back against recent Supreme Court decisions that were viewed as conservative victories.
Rep. Joe Morelle, New York Democrat, introduced a constitutional amendment to reverse the justices’ 6-3 ruling in favor of former President Donald Trump and his fight against criminal prosecution.
The Supreme Court ruled that some of a president’s actions are entitled to absolute immunity. The justices said nonofficial conduct is not entitled to any immunity from prosecution.
The decision delays Mr. Trump’s trial in Washington on charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith over alleged election fraud in his contest of the 2020 election results.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.