Sadly, the Supreme Court’s preposterous ruling in Donald Trump’s immunity case was not even the only misguided decision the court handed down at the end of its 2023/2024 term.

In another deeply troubling decision, the Supreme Court vastly expanded the ability of Big Business to attack rules that keep our air and water clean, safeguard workers and consumers, and protect the American people from corporate greed and wrongdoing.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Legislation often — and unavoidably — contains some ambiguities. It just isn’t realistic to expect Congress to write laws that clearly address every detail and imagine every possibility both at the time they are written and decades into the future.

• So we depend on the agencies that make up the executive branch — which employ tens of thousands of experts in a vast array of subjects — to figure out the best way to implement various laws and resolve any uncertainties based on their knowledge and experience.

• In a 1984 case called Chevron v. NRDC, the Supreme Court recognized that judges should defer to federal agencies about the meaning of a statute when the statute is ambiguous and Congress delegated its implementation to a particular agency.

• That landmark principle — in place for a full 40 years — is referred to as “Chevron deference” (as in deferring to the court’s decision in the 1984 case, not deferring to the oil company).

• But the Supreme Court just overruled itself — and upended four decades of established law — by ruling that judges should *not* defer to the knowledge and experience of agency experts.

So now, when Big Business and other anti-regulation groups attack rules that protect the public, judges will have a lot more latitude to rule based on their own policy preferences.

As I said in a statement to the national media: “This decision is a gift to big corporations.”

Is there something we can do about this?

Yes!

Congress can render this flawed Supreme Court ruling moot by enshrining into law the principle that judges should defer to agency experts when it comes to the nuts and bolts of implementing regulatory laws.

Tell Congress:

By overturning the legal doctrine known as Chevron deference, the Supreme Court is making it easier for Big Business to attack commonsense safeguards that the American people count on. We urge you to pass the Stop Corporate Capture Act without delay to counteract this flawed Supreme Court ruling.

Click to add your name now.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
 
 
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