A Federal lawsuit challenging an EPA regulation on fishermen could break the so-called Chevron defense, which has been used to justify the executive branch’s use of regulations to create de facto new laws. The conservative court appears to be telegraphing a willingness to overthrow the Chevron defense, which could significantly limit the power of federal agencies to create increasingly broad-ranging regulations that might not be in the scope of the legislation that created those powers in the first place.
Loper Bright Enterprises and other fishing companies are suing the Federal government over a new federal regulation created by the EPA that would lower fishing vessals’ incomes by 20 percent or more. The EPA has created a rule that requires fishing vessels to monitor 50 percent of their declared herring fishing trips. The rule would require the vessels to use monitoring services that would cost $700 and more a day.
The lawsuit was chosen for review by the conservative judges of the Supreme Court, leading some to question whether this case could undermine what’s called the “Chevron Defense.” This is a precedent that gives deference to federal agencies in interpreting the intentions of the legislation that they base their claims to create new laws without having them pass the legislature.
These new laws are called regulations, which is de facto new law that can bypass the halls of congress and the White House.
The lawyers for the fishermen are going directly after the Chevron defense, saying of it that it “encourages the executive branch’s aggrandizement at the expense of the judiciary, Congress and the citizenry.”
The lawsuit was rejected in a lower appeals court, the District of Columbia Circuit. The Court ruled that the precedent set in Chevron V Natural Resource Defense Council in 1984 still applies.
