SCOTUS EPA ruling and the ATF

[Sharkbite]

With the courts ruling stating in part (and im paraphrasing), that Agencies dont get broad reaching rule making abilities, how does that affect upcoming ATF “rules” on things like pistol braces making guns into SBR’s?

The ruling says that its up to congress to make laws that have broad reaching effects on citizens.

What do our legal eagles on this forum have to say?

[zukiphile]

I'll admit to having only skimmed it.

I'm not reading it as a broad reversal. The Court isn't saying the EPA couldn't restructure the power grid and economy if that's what Congress had authorized.

It's saying that we are looking at this part of the law the EPA says gave it a sweeping power long ago, and just now it has discovered that all along it had the power to restructure the power grid and economy. We read what Congress passed and don't see how they could have meant that.

The Government attempts to downplay the magnitude of this “unprecedented power over American industry.” Industrial Union Dept., AFL–CIO v. American Petroleum Institute, 448 U. S. 607, 645 (1980) (plurality opinion). The amount of generation shifting ordered, it argues, must be “adequately demonstrated” and “best” in light of the statu tory factors of “cost,” “nonair quality health and environmental impact,” and “energy requirements.” 42 U. S. C. §7411(a)(1). EPA therefore must limit the magnitude of generation shift it demands to a level that will not be “exorbitantly costly” or “threaten the reliability of the grid.” Brief for Federal Respondents 42. But this argument does not so much limit the breadth of the Government’s claimed authority as reveal it. On EPA’s view of Section 111(d), Congress implicitly tasked it, and it alone, with balancing the many vital considerations of national policy implicated in deciding how Americans will get their energy. EPA decides, for instance, how much of a switch from coal to natural gas is practically feasible by 2020, 2025, and 2030 before the grid collapses, and how high energy prices can go as a result before they become unreasonably “exorbitant.”


There is little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to the Agency.

Pages 24-25.

[44 AMP]

.. that Agencies dont get broad reaching rule making abilities,..

I'm not a legal eagle or even a legal beagle, but what I'm getting from the rulings are that agencies don't get broad reach rule making authority, unless Congress specifically gives it to them in the law.

And, in the EPA case, they ruled Congress did not. Therefore, it is up to Congress to either directly govern, or to write a law that specifically authorizes the EPA to make rules.

How is this going to affect the ATF and its policies? I have no clue. Something to be very wary of, is accepting what the various commentors and "analysists" (from any side) tell you what SCOTUS rulings "mean". And especially the headlines many of which are drastically inaccurate fear mongering, and even outright lies.

One I saw today about the EPA case ruling was "Supreme Court rules against the planet!"

As I see it, the court ruled against the govt NOT FOLLOWING THE RULES THEY WROTE, in that case, and nothing more. Now, how other agencies react, what they do, and don't do, to prevent them being in a case the court rules on, is up to them, their directors, and ultimately the "big guy" in the White House.

[csmsss]

I was hopeful that SCOTUS would take the obvious step of completely throwing out the Chevron deference. They did not, but perhaps the next case will be the one. Fortunately, the many tentacles of the feds mean that there is no shortage of active litigation that the court can choose from.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/chevron_deference

[DaleA]

Repulican Senator Ben Sasse from Nebraska has said on several occasions that it is advantageous, (and also reprehensible), for folks in Congress to pass off their responsibilities to the various agencies or even to the president.

He makes the point that if you don't do anything you don't have to answer for anything and lots of folk in government are more than happy to pass the buck.