The Supreme Court on Monday weakened a law protecting federal regulations from lawsuits, granting the companies governed by those rules more time to challenge them. The move effectively eliminates any statute of limitations on rules issued by a wide range of federal agencies, potentially placing even long-standing regulations in legal peril.. The decades-old legal precedent provided the basis for regulations governing countless aspects of daily life, from the environment to labor protections.
In one decision after another, the court’s conservative justices largely agreed. In its most far-reaching ruling, handed down Friday, they threw into question the future of environmental and climate regulations by overturning the precedent that gave federal agencies authority to interpret laws based on their expertise and scientific evidence.
The effect of this ruling will take years to discern, but legal scholars and climate and environmental activists said it could jeopardize current and future climate policies because it expands the power of courts to review and strike down regulatory guidelines or efforts. Although the Supreme Court hasn’t applied Chevron to a case in more than a decade, the doctrine is essential to how lower court judges — who decide the majority of cases involving federal regulations — rule on any challenges to an agency’s actions. (Justice Elena Kagan,, noted that jurists cited Chevron in more than 17,000 cases over four decades.
As with Chevron, the issue at the heart of Corner Post had nothing to do with climate or environment. The suit, filed in 2021, argued that a 2011 regulation establishing debit card swipe fees was unreasonable. Because federal law states that challenges to regulatory laws must be filed within six years of the law’s adoption, the plaintiffs added a third party, Corner Post, a truck stop that opened in 2018.
The court also took a step, in a case involving the Securities and Exchange Commission, to sharply curtail the ability of federal agencies to enforce regulations and levy fines.revolved around George Jarkesy, a conservative radio show host and hedge fund manager accused of misleading investors. The SEC brought the case before an administrative law judge — a type of jurist who specializes in highly technical areas of law and decides cases without a jury.