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Notes -
Perhaps missed in the debate noise: SCOTUS rules that for January 6 protestors to be convicted under the Sarbanes-Oxley law against impairing an official proceeding, "the Government must establish that the defendant impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so". Just interfering by making a ruckus which caused the proceeding to halt doesn't cut it.
(Also Chevron deference was overturned, though I suspect courts will lose no time finding other reasons to defer to agency judgement)
They might think that the agency was correct? The recent assault on the Chevron doctrine has to be one of the oddest crusades in recent judicial history. I understand that a lot of conservatives are critical of the administrative state, but it's not like overturning Chevron really changes anything. I understand the justices had their own reasons for overturning it, but let's face it, they're all just a bunch of eggheads that make rulings based on principle. The reason Chevron became a doctrine in the first place was because it involved highly technical questions that courts were reluctant to wade into. The original case involved whether Chevron had to apply for a permit or not. While people are generally concerned about environmental issues, they're concerned about the kind of issues that actually affect the environment, not about the details of EPA permitting requirements. The present case involved whether certain fishing vessels were required to pay for observers while in international waters. Again, a purely technical question that the Supreme Court kicked back to the lower courts to answer. The end result of this isn't necessarily that the lower courts strike down the regulation at issue; they can always find that it was consistent with the intent of congress. In any event, whether vessels in restricted fisheries have to pay for observers required under the Magnuson-Stevens Act or whether the North Atlantic Fisheries Service has to pay for them isn't likely to be a topic of discussion here when the lower courts make their determination. If the courts rule that the NAFS has to pay then I doubt many will consider it a crushing blow to the administrative state.
It wasn’t highly technical questions. At least not in the sense of factual questions (ie does smokestack include the bubble or each stack). No these are all questions of law (ie what does the statute say). Chevron allowed agencies to answer that question enabling the executive to increasingly set policy even when that policy was a bit at odds with the statute. Sometimes it involved smoke stacks (which the NRDC was very much interested in); other times it involved other more weighty matters.
As for the idea that overturning Chevron won’t be a big blow to administrative state power, go on Westlaw and shepardize Chevron. There will easily be thousands of citations. It was a monumental case and striking it will have real meaningful changes in admin law.
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