Climate

Last Friday, the Supreme Court overruled the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine, fundamentally changing the landscape of federal regulatory power. This decision, reached with a 6-3 majority led by Chief Justice John Roberts, marks a significant shift in administrative law and has profound implications for environmental regulations and climate accountability.

Ironically, the downfall of the Chevron doctrine will give Chevron and other major oil and gas corporations more latitude to slow down and block regulations, allowing them to pollute with near impunity. At the end of the day, this decision means that courts will play a more active role in interpreting regulatory statutes, undermining scientific expertise, slowing regulatory processes, and creating obstacles at a time when urgent action is needed to address the climate crisis.

Understanding the Chevron Doctrine

The Chevron doctrine, established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., provided that courts should defer to federal agencies’ reasonable interpretations of ambiguous statutes. This deference allowed agencies (e.g., the EPA or FDA), staffed with experts, to interpret and implement laws within their purview effectively.

Under Chevron, when a statute was ambiguous, courts would typically side with the agency’s interpretation, recognizing the specialized expertise of agencies in their respective fields. This doctrine has played a crucial role in enabling agencies to enforce regulations on complex issues such as environmental protection, public health, and consumer safety. The ambiguity in statutes is often intentional, acknowledging that Congress isn’t equipped to design prescriptive policies across the whole suite of issues before them—let alone in a way that can evolve as science and technology evolve over time. This intentional ambiguity enables expertise to shape rulemaking as needed. During the 40 years Chevron was law, federal courts cited the doctrine more than 18,000 times.

The Supreme Court’s ruling

The recent ruling arose from two cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce. These cases involved a dispute over a NOAA Fisheries rule requiring herring vessels to pay for onboard monitors to prevent overfishing. Lower courts upheld the rule, citing Chevron deference. However, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority saw this as an opportunity to dismantle the doctrine altogether.

Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, declared that courts must now exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, rather than deferring to the agency’s reasonable interpretation. He emphasized that this change does not retroactively affect past cases decided under Chevron deference but will influence all future regulatory interpretations.

Five implications for climate accountability

The elimination of Chevron deference significantly impacts the ability of federal agencies to enforce regulations—particularly those related to environmental protection and climate change, as many of these regulations were crafted to be flexible in interpretation by design. Here’s how:

1. Increased Legal Challenges to Regulations: By removing judicial deference to agency interpretations, the ruling opens the door for increased legal challenges to regulations. Agencies will now face a higher bar in defending their rules, as courts will no longer necessarily defer to their expertise. This means that every regulation, including those aimed at reducing global warming emissions or protecting endangered species, will be subject to more inconsistent, inexpert judicial scrutiny. Under this new reality, oil and gas companies may feel more emboldened to challenge existing regulations hoping to shape the legal landscape to be more favorable for them. Successful court cases could limit the scope of future regulations.
2. Shift in Regulatory Power: The ruling effectively shifts power from federal agencies to the judiciary. Judges, rather than agency experts, will have the final say on the interpretation of ambiguous statutes. This change could result in less predictable and likely less scientifically informed decisions on complex environmental issues, as judges do not have the same level of expertise as agency professionals.
3. Slower Regulatory Process: The decision introduces a new level of difficulty into the regulatory process. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will need to try to anticipate every potential legal challenge alleging statutory ambiguity and prepare comprehensive justifications that can withstand unbounded judicial scrutiny. This could slow down the implementation of new regulations, as agencies might take more time to ensure their rules can survive such legal challenges. Worse, agencies may decide not to even try.
4. Impact on Existing and Future Regulations: While the ruling does not immediately retroactively affect regulations upheld under Chevron, it will influence future regulatory efforts. For example, regulations under the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act, which often rely on broad and ambiguous statutory mandates, are now vulnerable to unfavorable rulings at the hand of activist judges. This could hinder efforts to implement climate policies at the federal level.
5. Lobbying for Favorable Decisions: Judges will have more leeway and more need to rely on Amicus, or “Friend of the Court” briefs in writing opinions. Fossil fuel companies and their attorneys will have the incentives and funding to file such briefs aggressively. The views expressed by oil companies will have equal weight compared to agency scientists and experts. It should be noted that the plaintiffs in both cases leading to the overturning of Chevron were represented pro bono by attorneys from conservative law firms with ties to the Koch brothers.

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron represents a seismic shift in administrative law with far-reaching implications for climate accountability. By reducing the power of federal agencies to interpret and implement ambiguous statutes, the ruling complicates the path forward for robust environmental action. Oil and gas corporations have long been adept at manipulating the legal system to their advantage. Just hours after the Supreme Court’s decision, corporate lobbyists began strategizing to use the ruling to their advantage, aiming to challenge and reduce regulations in climate, finance, health, labor, and technology.

By employing a range of tactics, these corporations can delay public health and environmental protections, effectively postponing climate accountability cases for years. This strategy not only prevents plaintiffs from achieving justice through the courts but also allows these companies to use the courts to delay essential regulations. During this time, they can continue their operations with minimal restrictions, further exacerbating environmental and public health issues. Overturning the Chevron doctrine underscores the need for continued advocacy and a diversity of tactics to address the pressing challenges of climate change.

Unlikely alliance of unions and climate groups call for ‘clear and funded’ transition plan for communities reliant on dwindling industry

“In this city, everyone feels the decline of the North Sea,” says Chris Douglas, 39, who has lived in Aberdeen his whole life and began working as a taxi driver in the Granite City 20 years ago. He now has his own cab company, which in the past was entirely reliant on bookings from the oil and gas industry – today it’s “maybe 50%”, he says.

“You only have to look around: there are industrial estates decimated, hotels no longer trading. The good days are long gone,” he says. “And no political party is coming along to say they are going to rejuvenate the industry. There are just different plans for how to close it down.”

Continue reading...

You need to weigh your budget, but it does have benefits. Including some that are not obvious.

Life on this planet is becoming er … awkward anyway

• Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
• Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints

Continue reading...

Exclusive: Analysis of social media posts, including by candidates projected to win seats, finds multiple mentions of ‘hoaxes’ and ‘the Illuminati’

At least 30 Reform UK candidates have posted material or made statements that cast doubt on the validity of human-induced global heating, a Guardian analysis can reveal.

A suite of the party’s prospective parliamentary candidates have publicly cast doubt on the existence of the emission-caused climate crisis.

Continue reading...

Rainfall is down 40% since 2003 and experts predict a third of Sicily will be desert by 2030

Every morning, as soon as he wakes up, Luca Cammarata looks to the sky in the hope that some clouds on the horizon will bring a few drops of water. On his farm in the Sicilian interior, it hasn’t rained for months. Cammarata’s 200 goats graze on a parched landscape resembling a lunar surface, forced to eat dry weeds and drink from a muddy pond.

The 53-year-old has never experienced a drought like it. “If things continue like this,” he said, “I will be forced to butcher my livestock and close down my farm.”

Continue reading...

We’ve been making short-term decisions about our planet for a long time. The consequences are horrific to behold

The slashing rain turned the dirt roads into muddy creeks, the bus’s wipers shoved the torrent back and forth across the windshield, and Don Schreiber handled the wheel like Sandra Bullock in Speed as he wisecracked from under a big gray moustache. The vehicle swerved and slid in the storm, lightning flashed on the horizon, thunder shook the air. Whether the old yellow bus would make it back to the ranch house, get stuck or slide and flip depended on his driving.

Don, in his white Stetson and a blue and white checked western shirt, was our tour guide on this land in northwestern New Mexico that he knew intimately and had dedicated his retirement to protecting. When he and his wife Jane Schreiber bought the ranchland about 200 miles north-west of Santa Fe in 1999 to retire to, they – like many westerners – found that they owned the land, but not the subsurface rights. The fracking boom came, and gas companies began gouging holes for gas wells, laying pipelines and cutting roads across the fragile desert soil. Big trucks rolled across the land night and day to service the wells that studded the landscape. At the well we stopped at, the pressure gauge was broken.

Rebecca Solnit is a Guardian US columnist. She is the author of Orwell’s Roses and co-editor with Thelma Young Lutunatabua of the climate anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility

Continue reading...

Women should be at centre of climate policies as they face increased rates of violence and homelessness after disasters, researchers say

• Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
• Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast

One woman lived in fear when her husband started drunkenly punching his car and throwing glass bottles at her.

Another recognised her partner’s worsening violence when her young son abruptly told a stranger: “My dad is really mean to my mum.”

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Crowdfunding scheme salvages ‘imperfect’ fruit and veg following the country’s wettest autumn, winter and spring on record

When 31-year-old Dutch farmer Bastiaan Blok dug up his latest crop, the weather had taken a disastrous toll. His onions – 117,000 kilos of them – were the size of shallots.

“We had a very wet spring and a dry, warm summer, so the plants made very small roots,” said Blok, who farms 90 hectares in Swifterbant, in the reclaimed province of Flevoland. “Half of them were less than 40mm and normally at this size they aren’t even processed. We would have probably sold them for very little for biomass, or maybe to Poland for onion oil. It’s either far too wet and cold, or far too warm and dry, and there’s no normal growing period in between.”

Continue reading...

Tech firm’s bid to remove more CO2 than it produces is being tested as AI spawns new energy-hungry datacentres

• Bill Gates: AI will help rather than hinder climate targets

If you want evidence of Microsoft’s progress towards its environmental “moonshot” goal, then look closer to earth: at a building site on a west London industrial estate.

The company’s Park Royal datacentre is part of its commitment to drive the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI), but that ambition is jarring with its target of being carbon negative by 2030.

Continue reading...

Four cases backed by conservative activists in recent years have combined to diminish the power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Outgoing Green MP calls for combined strategy to ensure net zero will not be done ‘on the backs of the poor’

Labour must combine tackling the climate crisis with pursuing social justice, if elected, to show that achieving net zero will not be done “on the backs of the poor”, the UK’s outgoing Green party MP has warned.

Caroline Lucas, who has held the seat of Brighton Pavilion since 2010, said: “The biggest priority is to demonstrate that is not the case. We have to make sure that this is a strategy and a policy that is the opposite of being done on the backs of the poor.”

Continue reading...

Artists can open hearts and minds to inspire environmental action, and help grieve the loss and damage already inflicted

• Change by Degrees offers life hacks and sustainable living tips each Saturday to help reduce your household’s carbon footprint
• Got a question or tip for reducing household emissions? Email us at changebydegrees@theguardian.com

The Climate Guardians appeared in Westernport Bay in southern Victoria in February 2021, standing in solidarity with the locals protesting plans by energy company AGL to build a new gas hub in nearby Ramsar-listed wetlands.

They appeared again in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris that same year defying the state of emergency ban placed on protesters around the Cop21 and then in the heart of Melbourne throughout Extinction Rebellion’s recent autumn activism.

Continue reading...

War in Gaza, a failed coup in Bolivia, protests in Nairobi and Taylor Swift at Wembley: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

Continue reading...

Incident reignites concerns over crackdown on media before crucial UN climate talks in Baku later this year

Western journalists were refused entry to an energy industry conference in Azerbaijan earlier this month, reigniting concerns over the state’s crackdown on the media ahead of crucial UN climate talks in Baku later this year.

At least three journalists from the UK and France have told the Guardian that they felt “unsafe” after they were denied entry to the Baku Energy Week forum, despite registering with the event organisers weeks in advance.

Continue reading...

The calf, named Wakan Gli, is said to fulfill a Lakota prophecy that brings hope, but its birth is also a sign that more must be done to protect the Earth, a Lakota spiritual leader says.

The Interior Department rejected a proposed industrial road through pristine land in Alaska that was needed to reach an estimated $7.5 billion copper deposit.

Reform chair is hostile to net zero but is CEO of company that boasted of ‘saving hundreds of tonnes of CO2’

• UK election live – latest updates

Richard Tice’s property company has enthusiastically embraced green technologies despite his public hostility as Reform UK chair to net zero targets and some of the same initiatives.

The businessman, who led the populist rightwing party until Nigel Farage took over earlier this month, was accused of hypocrisy by opponents in Boston and Skegness, where he is running as a general election candidate.

Continue reading...

On 28 June 1974, chemists at the University of California published the first report that warned that CFCs could damage the Earth’s ozone layer

1 July 1974

Continue reading...

Half of the water flowing through regional river basins starts in so-called ephemeral streams. Last year, the Supreme Court curtailed federal protections for these waterways.