The American Farm Bureau says it’s now up to Congress to write clearer laws in the wake of the Supreme Court’s historic Friday ruling overturning legal precedent favoring federal bureaucrats over judges. AFB Deputy General Counsel Travis Cushman says the ruling upending the High Court’s 40-year-old Chevron precedent now puts the burden of writing clearer rules on Congress.
That’s not been the case with ‘Waters of the U.S.,” where Chevron precedent allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to reinterpret Congress’s vague WOTUS statute 14 times until the Supreme Court stepped in. Cushman says it’s why AFB got involved.
But can lawmakers, loathe to compromise on environmental and other laws, write clear definitions versus muddied ones that allow bills to squeak through? Cushman says only clarity will end nightmares like WOTUS.
Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, called “misguided” the 1984 ruling in Chevron vs. the Natural Resources Defense Council, a ruling that gave bureaucrats more power than judges when laws are ambiguous.
