The downfall of Chevron deference could completely change the ways courts review net neutrality, according to Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matt Schettenhelm. “The FCC’s 2024 effort to reinstitute federal broadband regulation is the latest chapter in a long-running regulatory saga, yet we think the demise of deference will change its course in a fundamental way,” he wrote in a recent report. “This time, we don’t expect the FCC to prevail in court as it did in 2016.” Schettenhelm estimated an 80 percent chance of the FCC’s newest net neutrality order being blocked or overturned in the absence of Chevron deference.
Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has made no secret of her ambitions to use the agency’s authority to take bold action to restore competition to digital markets and protect consumers. But with Chevron being overturned amid a broader movement undermining agency authority without clear direction from Congress, Schettenhelm said, “it’s about the worst possible time for the FTC to be claiming novel rulemaking power to address unfair competition issues in a way that it never has before.”
Khan’s methods have drawn intense criticism from the business community, most recently with the agency’s labor-friendly rulemaking banning noncompete agreements in employment contracts. That action relies on the FTC’s interpretation of its authority to allow it to take action in this area — the kind of thing that brings up questions about agency deference.
Think you meant non elected.
But the point is that policy decisions aren’t to be made by courts or agencies. They are to be made by an elected legislature, informed by the Congregational Research Services. To ensure the separation of powers.
Then the Executive agencies are to be tasked with enforce of the law. And if conflict should arise in the understanding of the law the judiciary is to interpret the law. And while judges are not experts in everything they are the experts in statutory interpretation.
It’s a great narrative that happens to justify a power grab by the judicial branch; probably the least democratic of the three branches.
It absolutely the least democratic, they aren’t representatives they’re judges. They side with the laws enacted by the people, not the people. And all federal judges are appointed.
That power has been with the judicial branch for 180+ years before it was given by the Court to the agency in the 80s to prop up a Reagan interpretation of the Clean Air Act.
This doesn’t seem to be working as intended. We have “originalists” who turn that concept on it’s head and are explicitly a political project.