Supreme Court sides with fishermen's fight against federal power

OK, this is the one that we have been talking about that was kind of under the radar but very important on federal regulatory activity. Sammy, thank you. And it looks like this is written by the Chief Justice. And this was the idea that if a federal agency is going to interpret ambiguous laws from Congress, they sort of get the final word. There's deference to those federal agencies. Critics of this say it's given those agencies way too much power, full of bureaucrats, people that are not elected voters can't hold them accountable. It looks like here it says this. It looks like. Let me see, the Chief Justice is writing, it looks like. A six three opinion and it looks like there's going to be a serious clawback of that federal agency power, if not completely overturning this, this earlier case, Chevron from 1984, they gave them so much power. It says we have given the record, the required courts, we've had them defer to permissible agency interpretations even when a review in court reads the statute differently in this case as we consider whether that doctrine should be overruled. And it sounds like they are going that step. How far they've gone with over ruling Chevron. They do say the language from the chief is Chevron is overruled. So this idea now that federal agencies have the power to take regulations, promulgate regulations from an ambiguous congressional law and that can't be checked by a court, that's gone. This is huge in the world of federal regulatory procedure. And again, to make it unwanty for you, whatever you do during the day, the gas you put in the car, the car that you drive, the shampoo that you use, the cell phone that you use, everything is touched by federal regulations. And these agencies have had a great deal of power since that 1984 case called Chevron from here at the Supreme Court. And today the language makes it clear the court is saying we are done with Chevron as we understood it. It's going to really claw back that federal power. Let me read you a little bit from the ending of this opinion here by the Chief Justice. He says if it is legal interpretation, that has been emphatically the Providence, province and duty of the judicial department, saying courts are ones who can weigh in here. It's not just a federal agencies. Chevron is overruled. Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority. He says the lower courts got this wrong. And so essentially, Chevron is gone. Courts need not, and under the Administrative Procedure Act, don't have to defer to an agency anymore. That is a big, big, It's a huge decision. And also it's because of the way it came down. It really does remind all voters, but especially Republicans, that President Trump was able to get those conservative justices at the court who made a decision to say Congress actually has a responsibility here and pushing it back.