In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to reject the precedent of automatically deferring to bureaucrats, lower courts are now being directed to review cases involving interference by federal agencies in the activities of Americans.
On June 28, the Supreme Court reversed Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a landmark case that had established a precedent for courts to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory language. Following this decision, the Supreme Court has directed lower courts to reassess Foster v. U.S. Department of Agriculture and KC Transport v. Secretary of Labor. These two cases involved judicial limitations on American commercial activities based on the deference principle previously upheld under Chevron.
“Our clients may now make their case in court without judges putting their thumb on the scale in favor of the government,” Paige Gilliard, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, the right-of-center legal nonprofit representing the plaintiffs in both cases, said following the high court’s ruling. “The Supreme Court’s decision to end Chevron deference is a move to restore fairness in federal courts. Our clients Arlen Foster and KC Transport are among the first beneficiaries.”
In Foster v. U.S. Department of Agriculture, South Dakotan farmer Arlen Foster faced a decision from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a branch of the Department of Agriculture, which classified a portion of his property as a wetland. This classification came after melting snow created a temporary puddle on his land in 2011, according to court documents. Despite the water having dried up, the NRCS prohibited him from farming on this designated wetland area.
Foster requested that the NRCS reevaluate their wetland designation and filed a lawsuit in 2023 when they repeatedly refused to do so. However, the lower courts upheld the Chevron doctrine and ruled in favor of the NRCS.
Critics of the Chevron precedent contended that it allowed bureaucrats to enforce their own interpretations of laws unchecked by the judiciary, effectively granting the administrative state a default advantage in legal disputes. On the other hand, supporters of Chevron maintained that the specialized knowledge possessed by federal agencies equipped them more aptly for policy-making decisions than judges.
In the case of KC Transport v. Secretary of Labor, an inspector from the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) concluded that the trucks and repair shop owned by KC Transport met the definition of a mine under the Mine Act. As a result, the inspector issued two citations to the company, as detailed in a court filing. The company’s trucks were occasionally used to transport coal, even though the nearest mines were located several miles away.
A D.C. Circuit Court ultimately deferred to the MHSA finding that KC Transport was operating a mine when the company filed suit.
“The era of ‘trust the experts’ is over,” Mandy Gunasekara, who served as EPA chief of staff during the Trump administration, previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “There’s no doubt that crafty administrative lawyers will try to find an end run around this ruling. But overturning Chevron deference, alongside the ‘major questions’ doctrine decision in West Virginia v. EPA, has defanged the deep state. This is a huge win for checks and balances and putting the faceless bureaucrats in their place.”
