The US Supreme Court is poised to reevaluate government power
TWO WEEKS before America’s Supreme Court considers whether Donald Trump may constitutionally remain on the presidential ballot, it will tackle a question closely tied to Mr Trump’s deregulatory plans for a second term. The power of some 436 federal agencies that do the bulk of the work of the federal government—from food safety to banking rules to pollution control—comes under the justices’ scrutiny on January 17th.
Herring—a silvery fish of the North Atlantic that can be smoked, pickled or, when young, tinned—is the unlikely star of Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo and Relentless v Department of Commerce. Both cases involve herring fishermen upset with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), a federal agency charged with safeguarding America’s ocean resources and habitat.
Drawing on a line in a statute giving the agency license to make regulations that are “necessary and appropriate…to prevent overfishing and rebuild overfished stocks”, in 2020 the NMFS required fishermen to bring an observer along with them on their boats—and to pay that person’s per-diem fee themselves. Space on these vessels is a “scarce and precious resource”, the fisheries’ lawyer argues, making the NMFS’s rule (which was suspended in April 2023) an “enormous imposition”. Making the fishermen foot the bill “adds insult to injury”.
2024-01-11 08:57:26
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