Supreme Court Overturns Chevron Ruling

Talk us through the potential ramifications here. Well, they could be significant for a number of agencies, Katie, including financial regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission and climate and environmental regulators like the EPA. This is a doctrine that was established all the way back in 1984, which essentially gave the power of agencies like this the ability to interpret laws that were vague, which frankly, a lot of the legislation that actually comes out of Congress can indeed be vague. And they would use their own in House experts to interpret that law and apply it accordingly in the court. Now overturning this today essentially takes that power away from the regulars, which means much more of this is going to have to be litigated in court and ultimately decided by the court rather than the agencies themselves. So think about things that the EPA has put out, for example, including auto emissions standards, for example, that could potentially be challenged. The way that the Securities and Exchange Commission actually interprets securities law, which of course is almost 100 years old at this point and has to be applicable to new developments in the financial system. It really limits the ability of regulators to do their own interpretations. And of course, this is the second day in a row we have seen a blow to regulators. The court also ruled yesterday against the SEC's in house judges, which will limit not only the SEC but other agencies and how they try, say, fraud cases internally. Now that all has to go to a jury. So once again, we're seeing the Supreme Court with a conservative majority ruling against regulators. And of course, the term is not yet over. We get more opinions on Monday, Katie. Yes, we do. And before we get there, I do want to ask, I mean, we talked a bit about the EPA, of course, the implications there. What about Wall Street, though? You mentioned the SEC, for example. What could this mean? Well, it could change the way in which the SEC is able to interpret its own authority. Remember, existing securities law has been on the books since the mid 1900s, and they apply it to say things like digital assets, saying that those laws don't need to change or be rewritten. It could, it could limit the ability to do that unless Congress writes more clear laws that can be interpreted directly. It will now be up to the court's discretion to read how those laws are. This also could apply to, say, the Federal Trade Commission, the efforts that are underway to ban non competes, for example. This could potentially throw that into question. Really, at the end of the day, this takes a lot of discretionary power away from the regulators, puts it back into the hands of courts of law, including, of course, the Supreme Court that ultimately had to come down with this decision today. Katie. Yeah. It'll be fascinating to see how this actually works out in practice. And before I let you go, I know you've had a long 48 hours or so. Talk to us about what's still left. Like you said, we have more opinions coming, including on Trump's claim of immunity. Yeah, that is the big one, his question of immunity from prosecution here in Washington in the case that was brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith. That case cannot move forward to trial in which he's charged with four criminal counts related to activities in and around January 6th, 2021, an election subversion. Until the court makes a ruling on this immunity question, they are waiting literally until the last possible second to do so. Katie. They also still have to decide a question regarding January 6th defendants and whether or not they can be charged with obstruction. This goes back to the Enron doctrine from that case decades ago. The obstruction question in that case not only could be applicable to those specific defendants, but also could have implications for that election subversion case which Donald Trump is charged with here in Washington. Both of these decisions obviously quite politically significant. Interesting that the court has chosen to deliver them to the public after that presidential debate between Trump and Biden last night. But we still have much to hear from the High Court. The opinion day for sure is Monday. The they have not yet said that that is the last day of the term, so they could potentially drag this out even further into next week.