Columbia Law Experts on 2024 Supreme Court Decisions

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce

“The Chevron Deference, and Why It Mattered,” Philip Bobbitt in BBC News
“The problem is many people think the Congress is quite dysfunctional now,” says Philip Bobbitt, Herbert Wechsler Professor of Federal Jurisprudence. “Where the court is going … seems to defy the realities of gridlock in the Congress as it’s actually operating today.” Read more.
 

“How the Supreme Court’s Massive Chevron Decision Will Affect Climate Policy,” Michael Burger in Axios
“If I were making a new rule today, I would seek to document and clarify the extent to which the central aspects of the rule are tied to factual, technical, and policy determinations,” says Michael Burger ’03, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “I would spend a lot less time offering legal rationales for why the decision represents a reasonable or permissible interpretation of an ambiguous statute.” Read more.
 

“A String of Supreme Court Decisions Hits Hard at Environmental Rules,” Michael Gerrard in The New York Times
“The agencies for more than 30 years have needed to use old, existing laws to deal with new environmental problems,” says Michael Gerrard, Andrew Sabin Professor of Professional Practice and faculty director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law. “And this new court is now making that extraordinarily difficult. Unless Congress is extremely specific, agencies can’t act. But since Congress is largely immobilized, this in turn freezes what they can do.” Read more.
 

“‘The Heart and Lungs of Liberty,’” Philip Hamburger in The New York Sun
The decision is “the beginning of the end of the administrative state,” says Hamburger. Read more.

Note: Hamburger submitted an amicus brief in support of the petitioner in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonprofit legal group founded by Hamburger, represented the petitioner in Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.

“Fed Bank Oversight Powers Grow More Uncertain in Wake of Court Action,” Kathryn Judge in Reuters
Federal Reserve bank supervisors “may be less inclined to regulate aggressively out of fear that banks, being the more well-funded out of the potential litigants, are more likely to fight back in the event of aggressive regulation,” says Kathryn Judge, Harvey J. Goldschmid Professor of Law. “But there’s no reason to assume that courts are necessarily going to be any more inclined to side with banks,” and that lack of clarity means it will be hard to know how any rule challenges will ultimately shake out. Read more.