In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that the emission limits adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Clean Power Plan exceeded the agency’s authority, because the Clean Air Act did not clearly authorize the agency to “restructure the American energy market.” Ordinarily, courts would review the interpretive issue under the Chevron standard. Instead, the Court’s majority invoked the major-questions doctrine. As with other recent Supreme Court opinions, the majority did not even cite Chevron.The opinion has raised a flurry of questions in the administrative-law community. Is Chevron still alive? What constitutes a “major question”? How does the major-questions doctrine fit into Chevron’s framework—if it does at all?
On Twitter, I attempted to answer this last question using the following flowchart. My goal: Determine how a lower court would apply the Chevron doctrine in light of West Virginia v. EPA.
No comments:
Post a Comment