• Nature - Earth - Countries - United States - Government - Federal government - Judicial branch - Federal judiciary - Supreme Court of the United States - Cases - Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
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• This is the main entry for "Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.", decided 1984-06-25.
• curation date: 2023-05-09
• Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), was a landmark case in which the United States Supreme Court set forth the legal test for determining whether to grant deference to a government agency's interpretation of a statute which it administers.
The decision articulated a doctrine now known as "Chevron deference".
The doctrine consists of a two-part test applied by the court, when appropriate, that is highly deferential to government agencies: first, whether Congress has spoken directly to the precise issue at question, and second, "whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute." The decision involved a lawsuit challenging the U.S. government's interpretation of the word "source" in an environmental statute.
In 1977, the U.S. Congress passed a bill that amended the Clean Air Act of 1963 - the United States' comprehensive law regulating air pollution.
The bill changed the law so that all companies in the United States that planned to build or install any major source of air pollutants were required to go through an elaborate "new-source review" process before they could proceed.
The bill did not precisely define what constituted a "source" of air pollutants, and so the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) formulated a definition as part of implementing the changes to the law.
The EPA's initial definition of a "source" of air pollutants covered essentially any significant change or addition to a plant or factory, but in 1981 it changed its definition to be simply a plant or factory in its entirety.
This allowed companies to avoid the "new-source review" process entirely if, when increasing their plant's emissions through building or modifying, they simultaneously modified other parts of their plant to reduce emissions so that the overall change in the plant's emissions was zero.
The Natural Resources Defense Council, an American non-profit environmental advocacy organization, then filed and ultimately lost a lawsuit challenging the legality of the EPA's new definition.
Chevron is one of the most important decisions in U.S. administrative law, and has been cited in thousands of cases since being issued in 1984.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevron_U.S.A.,_Inc._v._Natural_Resources_Defense_Council,_Inc.
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:United_States_Supreme_Court_cases
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Chevron_Corporation
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Natural_Resources_Defense_Council
• See also:
(2023-05-09, https://www.levernews.com/clarence-thomas-reversed-position-after-gifts-and-family-payments/) "Clarence Thomas Reversed Position After Gifts And Family Payments.
The U.S. Supreme Court justice switched sides on a landmark legal doctrine, satisfying his benefactors' conservative advocacy machine." U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America's most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife - Ginni Thomas - reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change.
Clarence Thomas' shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire (Harlan Crow) linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine - which is now headed back to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The so-called "Chevron deference" doctrine ("Chevron doctrine") stipulates that the executive branch of the U.S. government - not the federal courts - has the power to interpret laws passed by the U.S. Congress in certain circumstances.
Conservatives for years have fought to overturn the Chevron doctrine, a move that would empower legal challenges to federal agency regulations on everything from climate policy to workplace safety to overtime pay.
Clarence Thomas wrote a landmark U.S. Supreme Court opinion upholding the Chevron doctrine in 2005, but began questioning it a decade later, before eventually renouncing his past opinion in 2020 and claiming that the Chevron doctrine itself might be unconstitutional.
Now, Clarence Thomas could help overturn the Chevron doctrine in a new case the U.S. Supreme Court just agreed to hear next term.
Groups within the conservative legal movement funded by Leonard Leo's dark money network and affiliated with Clarence Thomas' billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow have organized a concerted effort in recent years to overturn Chevron.
That campaign unfolded as they delivered gifts and cash to Clarence Thomas and his family in the lead-up to his shift on the Chevron doctrine.
In 2010, Harlan Crow bankrolled a dark money group led by Clarence Thomas' wife Ginni Thomas - that paid Chevron doctrine $120,000.
Leonard Leo was on the group's board of directors.
In 2012, Leonard Leo's dark money network steered undisclosed consulting payments to Clarence Thomas' wife, Ginni Thomas.
The Leonard Leo network has funded Republican politicians and several nonprofits pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Chevron doctrine next term.
Harlan Crow, meanwhile, provided luxury travel to the Clarence Thomas family for two decades.
Clarence Thomas did not report those trips, and similarly failed to disclose that Harlan Crow bought his mother's house and allowed her to keep living there rent free and paid his grandnephew's boarding school tuition.
Last year (2022) Harlan Crow's wife Kathy Crow joined the board of trustees at the Manhattan Institute (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research) - a conservative think tank that pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the new case aimed at ending the Chevron doctrine.
Harlan Crow also co-founded the Club For Growth, a pro-business dark money group that issued a memo pining for the end of the Chevron doctrine.
Spokespeople for Leonard Leo, Harlan Crow's company, and the U.S. Supreme Court did not respond to The Lever's requests for comment.
CLARENCE THOMAS REVERSES HIMSELF.
After revelations of the gifts and cash, Clarence Thomas' most loyal defenders have sought to deflect criticism by depicting Clarence Thomas as immune from influence, insisting that he "refuses to compromise his principles," as Utah Senator and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk Mike Lee (R-UT) claimed in a tweet on Monday 2023-05-08).
But in this situation, Clarence Thomas abandoned his own stated principles on an issue at the heart of one of the conservative movement's most significant crusades to limit government regulation.
At issue is the 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A v. Natural Resources Defense Council (Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.), brought by environmental advocates to challenge Ronald Reagan administration's weakening of air pollution regulations.
The U.S. Supreme Court deferred to the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) interpretation of the Clean Air Act, over the protests of environmentalists.
The ruling was initially seen as a win for polluters, but it created the so-called "Chevron doctrine" - which became a landmark principle in administrative law, empowering federal agencies to interpret and implement statutes.
U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas was initially a defender of the Chevron doctrine.
In 2005, Clarence Thomas penned a decision upholding the Chevron doctrine - over the dissent of his fellow conservative U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia.
The case - National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services - addressed a federal agency's ability to regulate cable companies under a 1934 law.
Clarence Thomas wrote the majority opinion, arguing that the lower court should have applied the Chevron doctrine to the case and deferring to the agency's interpretation of the law.
"If a statute is ambiguous, and if the implementing agency's construction is reasonable, Chevron requires a federal court to accept the agency's construction of the statute, even if the agency's reading differs from what the court believes is the best statutory interpretation," Clarence Thomas wrote, defending both the legitimacy of the Chevron doctrine and its application in a landmark administrative law case.
But within the ensuing decade, Clarence Thomas changed course to crusade against Chevron deference, eventually arguing that his own opinion in the 2005 case had been ill-advised.
"In a period spanning less than three months in the spring of 2015, Justice Clarence Thomas issued five concurring or dissenting opinions that set forth a comprehensive, originalist take on the administrative state," one of his former clerks - Elbert Lin - wrote in a Yale Law Journal article in 2017.
"Though Justice Clarence Thomas himself had authored one of the Court's most significant cases affording deference to administrative agencies - National Cable & Telecommunications Association v. Brand X Internet Services - I argue it should come as little surprise that he would Clarence Thomas the first to question that case, if he felt the U.S. Constitution demanded it." One of those five opinions came in Michigan v. Environmental Protection Agency - a 2015 case challenging the EPA's ability to regulate power plants under the Clean Air Act.
Clarence Thomas joined the conservative majority, ruling that the EPA had overstepped its authority, and wrote his own concurrence arguing that Chevron deference unconstitutionally delegated power from the judiciary to the executive branch.
"Although we hold today that EPA exceeded even the extremely permissive limits on agency power set by our precedents, we should be alarmed that it felt sufficiently emboldened by those precedents to make the bid for Chevron deference that it did here," Clarence Thomas wrote.
In 2020 Clarence Thomas went even further, making the unusual move of renouncing his own decision in the 2005 Brand X case.
That year (2020), conservative groups were petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to take an administrative law case involving Howard Baldwin and Karen Baldwin - two movie producers who had overpaid taxes to the IRS, and were trying to get their money back using an obscure argument about the postmark date of a letter.
The Baldwins lost their case at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which cited Brand X precedent in ruling against the couple.
The Leonard Leo-linked New Civil Liberties Alliance petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an appeal and overturn Brand X. Leonard Leo's dark money group donated $1 million in 2020 to the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted not to take the case, with only Clarence Thomas dissenting.
"Although I authored Brand X, 'it is never too late to 'surrender former views to a better considered position,'" Clarence Thomas wrote - quoting from a 1950 court decision.
"Brand X appears to be inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), and traditional tools of statutory interpretation.
My skepticism of Brand X begins at its foundation - Chevron deference...
Chevron is in serious tension with the U.S. Constitution, the Administrative Procedures Act, and over 100 years of judicial decisions." FLIPPING THE U.S. SUPREME COURT.
Clarence Thomas' stunning reversal did not happen in a vacuum - it happened amid a coordinated campaign by the conservative movement, led by a network that enriched Clarence Thomas.
In the early 2010s, conservative groups began to take aim at the Chevron doctrine, building a case against it through law review articles, legal challenges to regulations, and by installing justices on the court who were willing to overturn it.
"Conservative jurists, commentators, began to see Chevron as empowering the administrative state in ways they didn't like" - Thomas Merrill, a professor at Columbia Law School, told Bloomberg.
The Federalist Society - the conservative lawyers organization where Leonard Leo is co-chair - was at the center of these efforts, publishing articles and touting theories undermining the Chevron doctrine and the administrative state.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) - where Harlan Crow sits on the board of trustees - was also agitating against the Chevron doctrine.
"The constant but erratic appeal to Chevron deference seems to us unsound not only for the exalted position that it confers on administrative expertise, but also for the massive political forces - think again of Sprietsma (Sprietsma v Mercury Marine Propeller Case: https://www.propellersafety.com/sprietsma-mercury-marine-propeller-case/) - that it unleashes at the highest levels inside the executive branch and administrative agencies," read a 2011 publication by the American Enterprise Institute.
A 2014 American Enterprise Institute publication lamented, "Chevron has become little more than a sedative for courts clearly anguished by the imaginative excesses of agencies, but unsure of the proper role of the judiciary in reining in those excesses." While conservative activists launched a judicial offensive funded by Leonard Leo's dark money network, Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow were also moving behind the scenes to influence the justices with gifts and payments.
The Washington Post reported last week (2023-05-05: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/05/leonard-leo-clarence-thomas-ginni/) that Leonard Leo steered payments to Clarence Thomas' wife - Ginni Thomas - through a polling company run by Trump pollster Kellyanne Conway, and the expenses were quickly covered by Leonard Leo's dark money network.
"No mention of Ginni, of course," Leonard Leo wrote as he instructed Kellyanne Conway to give Ginni Thomas "another $25K." Leonard Leo, Ginni Thomas, and Harlan Crow were all involved with Liberty Central - a Tea Party-themed dark money group formed in 2010.
Liberty Central was initially funded with $500,000 from Harlan Crow, according to Politico (2011-02-04: https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/justice-thomass-wife-now-lobbyist-048812), while Leonard Leo served on Liberty Central's board of directors.
Liberty Central paid $120,000 to Ginni Thomas.
Over the past two decades, Harlan Crow has frequently provided the Thomas family with private jet and superyacht trips that Clarence Thomas failed to disclose.
Harlan Crow also bought a house owned by Clarence Thomas and allowed Clarence Thomas' mother to live there rent-free, and paid at least two years of boarding school tuition for Clarence Thomas' grandnephew, whom Clarence Thomas said he raised "as a son." Clarence Thomas' fellow conservative on the court, Antonin Scalia, had also flipped from being one of Chevron's staunchest defenders to suggesting it be overturned.
The largesse that flowed to Clarence Thomas was part of a larger movement to pack the court with the kinds of justices who would throw out longstanding precedents like Chevron.
As President Donald Trump's judicial adviser, Leonard Leo helped select three of the U.S. Supreme Court's six conservative justices - while Leonard Leo's dark money network simultaneously spent tens of millions to boost their U.S. Supreme Court confirmation campaigns At least two of those justices - Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh - were on record publicly opposing the Chevron doctrine.
When Neil Gorsuch was nominated to replace Antonin Scalia in 2017, his hostility to Chevron deference was a key issue in congressional questioning.
As a lower court judge, Gorsuch had penned an infamous opinion calling Chevron "a judge-made doctrine for the abdication of the judicial duty." Neil Gorsuch would not only be to the right of Antonin Scalia on Chevron, but also could push the court's existing conservatives to overturn the Chevron doctrine.
"Neil Gorsuch may be the one to bring the court together on fundamental questions of administrative power that have sparked so much controversy and divisiveness in recent years," corporate lawyer and conservative commentator Andrew Grossman told Reuters.
The next Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, also opposed Chevron.
Leonard Leo told The New York Times that reining in executive branch agencies was becoming a key priority for the conservative court: "It's the next step in the national debate about the proper role of the courts.
The administrative state is 75 years old," Leonard Leo said, referring to the Administrative Procedures Act.
"It's become a huge, glaring issue." Trump's third appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, had not indicated a clear position on Chevron in previous cases, and declined to reveal her position on Chevron during her confirmation hearing.
"As a sitting judge and as a judicial nominee, it would not be appropriate for me to offer an opinion on abstract legal issues or hypotheticals relating to that precedent," Amy Coney Barrett said.
Club for Growth - the nonprofit co-founded by Harlan Crow - published a memo on the issue of Amy Coney Barrett's position on "Chevron & Administrative Deference," which noted: "If Judge Amy Coney Barrett were seated on the U.S. Supreme Court, her judicial philosophy would have a positive impact on limiting agency overregulation." Club for Growth spent $5 million boosting Amy Coney Barrett's confirmation.
LEONARD LEO'S NETWORK LOBBIES TO KILL CHEVRON.
Clarence Thomas' reversal on the Chevron doctrine - and the conservative movement's success in stacking the court - is more relevant than ever: Last week (2023-05), the U.S. Supreme Court justices voted to hear a case that could kill the Chevron doctrine outright.
The case - Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loper_Bright_Enterprises_v._Raimondo) - deals with a U.S. Commerce Department rule that stipulates how fishery inspectors are paid.
But the substantive issue in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is whether the U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Chevron - as a slew of Leonard Leo-backed groups is lobbying the court to do.
The New Civil Liberties Alliance - which received $1 million in 2020 from Leonard Leo's network - filed an amicus brief supporting Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
Leonard Leo's group, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, additionally contributed $350,000 in 2020 and again in 2021 to the Independent Women's Forum.
The Independent Women's Forum's affiliate - the Independent Women's Law Center - filed its own supportive brief in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
Leonard Leo's network donated $1 million between 2020 and 2021 to Advancing American Freedom, a nonprofit led by former Vice President Mike Pence that submitted a brief in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
The Leonard Leo network has been the longtime top financier of the Republican Attorneys General Association, which elects GOP attorneys general.
In 2022-12, 18 Republican attorneys general filed a brief in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, supporting the petitioners.
The Manhattan Institute - where Harlan Crow's wife is on the board - also filed an amicus brief asking the court to hear the case (Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo) designed to overturn Chevron.
• (2023-05-10, https://jacobin.com/2023/05/clarence-thomas-chevron-regulatory-doctrine-conservatives-dark-money/) "Influenced by Dark Money, Clarence Thomas Has Reversed His Position on a Landmark Legal Doctrine.
U.S. Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas has abandoned his own stated principles and changed his position on one of America's most significant regulatory doctrines.
Why?
A dark money network of conservative billionaires is making his family rich."