The Supreme Court gives the right a huge victory over expertise

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Supreme Court gives the right a huge victory over expertise
In rejecting the decades-long practice of deferring to government agencies, the conservative court gave the right a huge win in its push to sideline experts.

Analysis by Philip Bump
National columnist
June 28, 2024 at 1:20 p.m. EDT

One of the defining characteristics of this moment in American politics is the widespread rejection of expertise and authority, particularly on the right. ... That’s a useful lens for considering the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, handed down Friday. It is certainly a victory for business interests seeking to avoid regulation, but one that sits on a foundational belief that everyone can be an expert, so no one really is.

The decision in Loper Bright mirrors the court’s decision in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. In both decisions, the court actively chose to throw out decades-old precedent in service of an outcome fervently sought by conservative and right-wing activists. In Dobbs, it was curtailing abortion access. In Loper Bright, it was reducing the power of government agencies to implement laws.

At issue is the inevitable gap between laws as written and laws as implemented. Congress doesn’t and can’t think of every eventuality when creating new rules, so details are left to the agencies tasked with implementing them. Under the 1984 Chevron vs. Natural Resources Defense Council decision, courts deferred to the judgment of those agencies when the implementation was challenged and congressional intent was unclear. Loper Bright undoes Chevron, explicitly.

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The decision is unquestionably a function of the business-friendliness of the conservative majority. Revoking Chevron means that businesses frustrated by regulations don’t have to appeal to scientists and bureaucrats but can, instead, hire lawyers and talk to judges — terrain where their odds of success are much higher in part because the judges aren’t subject-matter experts.

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By Philip Bump
Philip Bump is a Post columnist based in New York. He writes the newsletter How To Read This Chart and is the author of The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America. Twitter https://twitter.com/pbump

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Bible over Scientists. Ask Leonardo.

[WestMichRad]

2. Judges with no subject matter expertise

… will be tasked with deciding which claim has more merit: a concise cost of the burden of a regulation to the plaintiff, versus a regulation developed by subject matter experts that is based on statistical probability and estimates of the potential harm relying on studies that, by their nature, always have uncertainty. Someone with no expertise in the nature of scientific study will often be swayed by the certainty of the plaintiff’s case.

This is a sad day for our nation’s supposed tenet of “and justice for all.”

[Hekate]

3. KnR. The Supreme Court gives the right a huge victory over expertise