Perspective: How a Supreme Court decision went from red to blue in less than 2 decades – By Alan Hurst (Deseret News) / May 22, 2023
Between Reagan and Obama, support for ‘Chevron deference’ changed. Now the doctrine is back before a conservative Supreme Court
What makes a Supreme Court case conservative or liberal, red or blue? Sometimes the answer is less obvious than you’d think.
When Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council was decided in 1984, the decision looked reddish-purple. Its immediate effect was conservative — the court sided with the Reagan administration and an oil company against an environmental group — but the opinion was unanimous and written by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens.
Fast forward 20 years to the 2000s, when that purplish decision was shading towards crimson. It was no longer a case about an oil company; instead the doctrine of “Chevron deference” has come to mean that when a federal agency interprets a law, courts should adopt the agency’s interpretation as long as it’s reasonable.
The implications were enormous. As I’ve written before, there are so many federal agencies that we’ve lost count, and they’re constantly interpreting acts of Congress. Is carbon dioxide a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, meaning the EPA can regulate everything that emits carbon dioxide? Does the CDC have the authority to prohibit evictions nationwide?
CONTINUE > https://www.deseret.com/2023/5/22/23725567/supreme-court-lopez-bright-chevron-doctrine-conservatives
