Lawmakers put federal agencies on notice after end to Chevron deference

By Casey Harper
The Center Square

A coalition of lawmakers are putting federal agencies on notice after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned “Chevron deference” and as a result, significantly limited their power.

House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has helped lead the effort, but the relevant committee chairs with oversight of the federal government, have signed on to similar letters.

“This long-needed reversal should stem the vast tide of federal agencies’ overreach,” Comer said in his letters to the federal government. “Given the Biden administration’s track record, however, I am compelled to underscore the implications of Loper Bright and remind you of the limitations it has set on your authority.”

The push comes on the heels of the Supreme Court overturning part of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and thereby putting an end to “Chevron deference,” a previous legal policy that gave broad license to federal bureaucrats to interpret and enforce laws passed by Congress as they saw fit.

In that vein, House lawmakers held a hearing Wednesday for oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency, the first in what is likely a new era of EPA oversight after the major Supreme Court ruling.

President Joe Biden’s EPA has pushed out a few particularly aggressive regulations that have drawn pushback.

Among those are WOTUS, an Obama-era rule that classified even tiny bodies of water as under federal jurisdiction.

More recently, the EPA’s tailpipe emissions standards are under fire, mainly because they will likely force a nationwide transition from gas to hybrid or electric vehicles in just a few years.

“EPA’s largest regulations, such as the tailpipe emissions rules for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, have been estimated to cost nearly $900 billion to implement,” Comer said at the hearing Wednesday. “Those rules require automakers to completely redesign their operations to produce more electric vehicles – regardless of what consumers are demanding in the actual marketplace.”

Now, that era has likely come to an end.

“The Supreme Court decision has put policy making back into the hands of the Congress where it belongs, and unelected bureaucrats can no longer weaponize their authority to enact their own personal agenda,” Daniel Turner, executive director of the energy workers advocacy group, Power the Future, told The Center Square. 

“Industry for decades has been chocked by ever-changing regulations with penalties and fines and even criminal prosecution, all whims of the bureaucrat in charge. The American people are sick and tired of big government, and agencies like the EPA are back under the purview of the Congress and not some green billionaire whose think tank feeds the Administrator’s team with propaganda and lies."

But the EPA is just one of many agencies facing a Congressional effort to undo years of federal rulemaking.

Comer noted that he has also joined lawmakers in sending letters to an array of agencies that face a similar review, including:

AmeriCorps
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Council on Environmental Quality
Department of Agriculture
Department of Commerce
Department of Education
Department of Energy
Department of the Interior
Department of Health and Human Services
Department of Homeland Security
Department of Labor
Department of State
Department of Transportation
Department of the Treasury
Department of Veterans Affairs
Environmental Protection Agency
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
National Credit Union Administration
National Labor Relations Board
Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Office of the United States Trade Representative
Securities and Exchange Commission
Small Business Administration
Social Security Administration

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