Major questions doctrine

@mott-the-hoople said
the EPA does not and has never had the authority to act unilaterally.

Congress would know this, not SCOTUS. If they weren't given the authority then they wouldn't have done it. SCOTUS shouldn't be deciding what authorities were given or not.

@wildgrass said
Why is SCOTUS involved at all in that? Shouldn't it be up to Congress to decide whether or not that authority was granted to the EPA?

I think SCOTUS could get involved if the Clean Air Act itself was not constitutional.

Assume that the CAA is constitutional (I'm not aware of any major case that's said otherwise). The CAA is passed. That's done. It's not being repealed any time soon. On the other hand, it's very hard to expand or even clarify it through Congress in today's day and age. So the issue becomes how broadly should we interpret it as it exists now? Sorry to repeat, but what if the EPA bans the automobile and assume, for argument's sake, that the plain language of the CAA would include that sort of regulation. Is that the sort of thing the EPA should do without specific Congressional authority?

@sh76 said
Assume that the CAA is constitutional (I'm not aware of any major case that's said otherwise). The CAA is passed. That's done. It's not being repealed any time soon. On the other hand, it's very hard to expand or even clarify it through Congress in today's day and age. So the issue becomes how broadly should we interpret it as it exists now? Sorry to repeat, but what if the EPA ...[text shortened]... of regulation. Is that the sort of thing the EPA should do without specific Congressional authority?

Yes, in my opinion I think that would be outside EPA authority. Surely there's a mechanism for checking EPA authority built into the law itself?

If not, maybe the law is unconstitutional. I don't like the idea of asking SCOTUS what a major or minor question is. It leaves far too much open to the opinion of non-experts.

@wildgrass said
Congress would know this, not SCOTUS. If they weren't given the authority then they wouldn't have done it. SCOTUS shouldn't be deciding what authorities were given or not.

undoubtedly you havent read nixons plan when he created the EPA

@wildgrass said
Yes, in my opinion I think that would be outside EPA authority. Surely there's a mechanism for checking EPA authority built into the law itself?

If not, maybe the law is unconstitutional. I don't like the idea of asking SCOTUS what a major or minor question is. It leaves far too much open to the opinion of non-experts.

Agency enabling statutes are broad by nature. It would be very difficult for the enabling act to pigeonhole exactly the sorts of regulations the agency could enact. At some point, I think it makes some sense for the courts to say if you're going to do something THAT broad, you need more explicit authorization.

If an enabling act says the TSA must try to maintain air safety and the TSA decides to ground commercial flights during the winter, since ice can cause plane crashes, at some point, the courts would have to say "whoa, that would be constitutional if Congress did it, but you're not Congress; you can't go that far without more explicit permission."

@sh76 said
Agency enabling statutes are broad by nature. It would be very difficult for the enabling act to pigeonhole exactly the sorts of regulations the agency could enact. At some point, I think it makes some sense for the courts to say if you're going to do something THAT broad, you need more explicit authorization.

If an enabling act says the TSA must try to maintain air safety an ...[text shortened]... f Congress did it, but you're not Congress; you can't go that far without more explicit permission."

It's up to Congress to decide how broadly they want to delegate such decisions. Unless they are completely abdicating their role, it is not a Constitutional duty of the courts to look at plain language allowing such delegation but say "well, that would have TOO major consequences so we're going to pretend Congress didn't really mean what it said".

EDIT: Besides the fact that here the entire case was moot and the SCOTUS issued an advisory decision, which it hasn't been allowed to do since the beginning of the country.

@sh76 said
Agency enabling statutes are broad by nature. It would be very difficult for the enabling act to pigeonhole exactly the sorts of regulations the agency could enact. At some point, I think it makes some sense for the courts to say if you're going to do something THAT broad, you need more explicit authorization.

If an enabling act says the TSA must try to maintain air safety an ...[text shortened]... f Congress did it, but you're not Congress; you can't go that far without more explicit permission."

Is it the expressed intent of 'agency enabling statutes' that the courts would provide a list of authorized activities, or is there supposed to be another / better way to decide what is too broad?

Vaccine mandates are common-place in our society, and the EPA has been regulating emissions for quite some time. And yet SCOTUS has recently changed what these agencies believed their authority was. Your other examples are very extreme and obvious, and probably fit outside what any reasonable agency would do. But the two recent examples in which the "major questions doctrine" was used are not obvious. This doctrine being invoked in situations that are not that major, in my opinion, seems quite problematic.

Edit: Again, it seems like if Congress writes a statute that is too broad in delegating authority that it requires the Supreme Court to make individual regulatory decisions, then Congress likely wrote an unconstitutional law? Or am I misinterpreting here?

@mott-the-hoople said
undoubtedly you havent read nixons plan when he created the EPA

No I have not. Do you have info to share? Is it a good idea moving forward for SCOTUS to decide regulatory activities at all US agencies?

@wildgrass said
No I have not. Do you have info to share? Is it a good idea moving forward for SCOTUS to decide regulatory activities at all US agencies?

“ The EPA would be able--in concert with the states--to set and enforce standards for air and water quality and for individual pollutants.”

The EPA was never intended to act on its own.

https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa

@mott-the-hoople said
“ The EPA would be able--in concert with the states--to set and enforce standards for air and water quality and for individual pollutants.”

The EPA was never intended to act on its own.

https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa

'Clear congressional authority' is what the EPA lacked in this case, according to the court.

I'm not sure what you refer to here. In concert with the state of West Virginia? If I'm reading the rule correctly, West Virginia was voluntarily in compliance with the regulation so nothing was set or enforced. How is that out of concert with the states?