SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
chevron doctrine
Warren, Jayapal Introduce Bill Aimed at Curbing Corporate Meddling in Regulations
“While Donald Trump keeps selling away influence over our government, we’re fighting to ensure the rules are being written to help working Americans, not corporate interests," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Nov 19, 2025
Two progressive Democrats are teaming up to push legislation to curb corporate America's capture of the federal government's regulatory process.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Wednesday announced a new bill called the Experts Protect Effective Rules, Transparency, and Stability (EXPERTS) Act that aims to restore the role of subject matter experts in federal rulemaking.
Specifically, the bill would codify the Chevron doctrine, a 40-year legal precedent overturned last year by the US Supreme Court, which held that courts should be broadly deferential to decisions made by independent regulatory agencies about interpretations of congressional statutes.
The legislation would also push for more transparency by requiring the disclosure of funding sources for all "scientific, economic, and technical studies" that are submitted to agencies to influence the rulemaking process.
Additionally, the bill proposes speeding up the regulatory process by both "excluding private parties from using the negotiated rulemaking process" and reinstating a six-year limit for outside parties to file legal challenges to agencies' decisions.
In touting the legislation, the Democrats pitched it as a necessary tool to rein in corporate power.
“Many Americans are taught in civics classes that Congress passes a law and that’s it, but the reality is that any major legislation enacted must also be implemented and enforced by the executive branch to become a reality,” said Jayapal. “We are seeing the Trump administration dismantle systems created to ensure that federal regulation prioritizes public safety. At a time when corporations and CEOs have outsized power, it is critical that we ensure that public interest is protected. This bill will level the playing field to ensure that laws passed actually work for the American people."
Warren, meanwhile, argued that "giant corporations and their armies of lobbyists shouldn’t get to manipulate how our laws are implemented," and said that "while Donald Trump keeps selling away influence over our government, we’re fighting to ensure the rules are being written to help working Americans, not corporate interests."
The proposal earned an enthusiastic endorsement from Public Citizen co-president Lisa Gilbert, who described it as "the marquee legislation to improve our regulatory system."
"The bill aims directly at the corporate capture of our rulemaking process, brings transparency to the regulatory review process and imposes a $250,000 fine on corporations that submit false information, among other things," she said. "The bill is essential law for the future of our health, safety, environment, and workers. Public Citizen urges swift passage in both chambers."
Keep ReadingShow Less
4 Ways the Supreme Court Made It Harder to Protect the Environment
By limiting the power of federal agencies and extending the statute of limitations for challenging agency actions, these rulings introduce uncertainty and could provide an avenue for winding back regulations.
Aug 15, 2024
The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued decisions in four cases that could profoundly weaken the administrative state, foreshadowing widespread dysfunction for federal agencies and the vast regulatory regimes they oversee, including federal protections safeguarding public health and the environment.
The U.S. federal government has more than 439 agencies and subagencies, each with its own sphere of responsibility and expertise. These agencies are responsible for implementing, applying, and enforcing a wide array of regulations across areas such as air quality, clean drinking water, education, energy, financial markets, food safety, and healthcare—regulations that greatly impact American lives.
These Supreme Court decisions will undoubtedly be used to restrict the ability of federal agencies to interpret, apply, and enforce the laws and regulations crucial to the real-life, day-to-day implementation of our federal government’s most important functions.
Supreme Court Decisions Impacting Federal Agencies
The Supreme Court issued four decisions this past term (2023-2024) that challenge the authority of federal agencies:
- Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo: Overturned the longstanding Chevron doctrine, which gave deference to federal agencies. Courts will no longer be required to defer to the specialized technical expertise of federal agencies and their reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory terms or unclear definitions provided by Congress.
- SEC v. Jarkesy: Ruled that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) must provide defendants with a jury trial in enforcement actions seeking civil penalties, limiting the agency’s anti-fraud enforcement capabilities.
- Corner Post v. Federal Reserve: Extends the statute of limitations for challenges to agency actions, leading to prolonged legal uncertainty, even for decades-old regulations.
- Ohio v. EPA: Halted enforcement of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) “Good Neighbor” rule—which aimed to implement ozone air pollution standards—because the agency had not provided an adequate explanation of its plan. This case signals the Supreme Court’s willingness to hinder federal agency efforts to regulate pollution on a nationwide basis.
Chevron Deference and Its Demise
The advent of the doctrine of Chevron deference, established in 1984 through Chevron. v. NRDC, and its demise in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo both concern environmental regulation.
Chevron v. NRDC addressed the EPA’s interpretation and application of a regulation promulgated under the Clean Air Act. The Supreme Court upheld the EPA’s interpretation of an ambiguous provision of the law and, in doing so, held that courts must defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of ambiguous statutory terms—enter “Chevron deference.” For the past 40 years, Chevron deference has been the cornerstone of administrative law, and Chevron v. NRDC has been cited no less than 18,000 times in other court decisions.
Without Chevron deference, the Supreme Court will have the final say over policy questions and, in the words of Justice Kagan, becomes the country’s self-appointed “administrative czar.”
The Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo abruptly ended Chevron deference, significantly shifting power from federal agencies to the judiciary. The case concerned the regulation of the commercial fishing of overfished Atlantic herring pursuant to the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The Supreme Court considered the narrow question of whether commercial fishers of Atlantic herring can be made to shoulder the cost of hosting government fisheries monitors on board their vessels.
In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled that courts—not agencies—are to determine all questions of law, including the single best interpretation of ambiguous terms, even if those terms are scientific and technical. Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent warned that the majority decision would leave courts to determine questions far outside their expertise, including issues of environmental protection, such as how to define a “distinct population segment” of endangered “vertebrate fish or wildlife” pursuant to the Endangered Species Act.
Shifts in Power and Ongoing Impact
The removal of Chevron deference fundamentally shifts power from Congress and the executive to the judicial branch. By upsetting the long-held equilibrium stewarded by the Chevron doctrine, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo will restrict the federal government’s operations and hinder environmental regulation.
Presidents depend on the administrative state to apply their policy preferences, and Congress enacts statutes with the understanding that agencies will utilize their experience and expertise to reasonably interpret ambiguities. Without Chevron deference, the Supreme Court will have the final say over policy questions and, in the words of Justice Kagan, becomes the country’s self-appointed “administrative czar.”
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is already having a profound impact: As of August 5, 2024, 59 courts have cited the decision, and litigants in 120 other cases have cited it in court filings. The decision is being used to stymie ESG investment regulation, reopen federal waters after an emergency closure to protect North Atlantic right whales, contest solar power facility certifications as a qualifying source of alternative energy, challenge requirements for water heaters to meet efficiency standards, and defend against the use of a tire manufacturing chemical whose runoff caused a “taking” of protected fish species.
Not only does Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo present a serious obstacle to the application and interpretation of federal environmental protection rules, but, together with SEC v. Jarkesy, it will also limit the ability of agencies to enforce those rules.
Climate Disclosure Rules and ESG Investing after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and SEC v. Jarkesy
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and SEC v. Jarkesy will influence the ongoing challenge to the SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules, currently pending before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The SEC’s Climate Disclosure Rules—albeit insipid—require larger companies to disclose material Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) emissions information. These rules have been challenged by 25 states, two Big Oil trade groups, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The primary basis for the challenge to the rules is that it represents an unauthorized expansion of the SEC’s statutory rulemaking authority, making it ultra vires (beyond its legal powers). In overturning Chevron deference, the Supreme Court held that rulemaking agencies, such as the SEC, must demonstrate unambiguous congressional authority to create a rule, increasing the burden on these administrative agencies to prove they have the authority to implement such regulations. This poses a problem for the SEC, which adopted the Climate Disclosure Rules under the investor protection legislation of the Securities Act and the Securities Exchange Act. The SEC must demonstrate that it has unambiguous statutory authority to make climate-related regulations under these laws.
The EPA is one such agency that, until SEC v. Jarkesy, could impose civil penalties in administrative proceedings when environmental protection regulations have been violated, but it now faces limitations due to the decision.
Even if the Eighth Circuit upholds the Climate Disclosure Rules, their enforcement faces additional obstacles due to SEC v. Jarkesy. Failure to disclose material Scope 1 or 2 emissions could violate the Climate Disclosure Rules and potentially constitute securities fraud under SEC Rule 10b-5. The SEC can seek civil penalties for securities fraud, and since the Dodd-Frank Act, it could do so in the agency’s administrative courts.
In the SEC v. Jarkesy case, the SEC brought an enforcement action against investment adviser George Jarkesy, Jr. for securities fraud, resulting in a civil penalty of $300,000 and a disgorgement of $685,000 imposed by an administrative law judge. However, the Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Constitution’s Seventh Amendment entitles defendants to jury trials for any statutory claim that is legal in nature—even those brought by the government—and impacts the defendants’ private rights. The SEC v. Jarkesy decision significantly limits the SEC’s ability to combat securities fraud involving misleading and deceptive climate disclosures by removing the option of administrative proceedings and requiring enforcement actions be litigated through the lengthy and expensive jury trial process.
The decision seriously undermines the ability of not just the SEC to bring enforcement actions, but, as noted by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent, SEC v. Jarkesy will also restrict the enforcement capabilities of over two dozen other federal agencies that can impose civil penalties in administrative proceedings. The EPA is one such agency that, until SEC v. Jarkesy, could impose civil penalties in administrative proceedings when environmental protection regulations have been violated, but it now faces limitations due to the decision.
The Last Nail in the Coffin? An Extended Statute of Limitations for Challenging Agency Rules
The Administrative Procedure Act provides that a party has six years to challenge an agency regulation, and it was typically presumed that the six-year limitation began to run when the agency issued the regulation. However, in Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, the Supreme Court held that the limitation period starts when the party challenging the rule is actually injured by it. Accordingly, instead of the clock starting at publication, it starts at a different time for each potential litigant.
This decision means that longstanding agency regulations may now be subject to challenges by parties who have only recently been impacted by the rule. The Corner Post v. Federal Reserve decision dramatically expands the universe of existing regulations vulnerable to legal challenges by eliminating existing time restrictions on when court challenges to regulations can be brought.
Corner Post v. Federal Reserve will precipitate legal uncertainty and undermine the predictability of the law and agency regulations.
Good Neighbors No More: Ohio v. EPA
While the focus has been on the above mentioned cases, another decision has received less attention but is just as significant for federal environmental regulation. Ohio v. EPA inhibits the EPA’s ability to regulate air pollution on a national basis.
Under the Clean Air Act’s “good neighbor” rule, the EPA required 23 states—under a single implementation plan—to reduce air pollution traveling to downwind states, thereby requiring big polluters in upwind states to reduce emissions.
In Ohio v. EPA, the Court provided a preview of the post-Chevron difficulties courts will confront in grappling with technical questions best left to agency experts.
The court’s majority recognized the harm that increased ozone levels can cause, including triggering and exacerbating health problems and damaging vegetation, but held that the plan was likely “arbitrary or capricious” because the EPA had not “offered a ‘satisfactory explanation for its action[,] including a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.’” According to the majority, the EPA failed to explain how the plan’s cost thresholds and emission limits were impacted by the number of states included in the plan.
The court split five-four. Justice Amy Coney Barrett—a reliable member of the court’s conservative clique—dissented and observed:
Given the number of companies included and the timelines for review, the court’s injunction leaves large swaths of upwind states free to keep contributing significantly to their downwind neighbors’ ozone problems for the next several years…
An application for a stay was granted, pending the final determination of the merits of the case. Significantly, Justice Barrett noted that Ohio v. EPA is “fact-intensive and highly technical” and—somewhat at odds with the majority opinion she joined in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo—that the court “should proceed all the more cautiously in cases like this one with voluminous, technical records and thorny legal questions.”
Indeed, in Ohio v. EPA, the court provided a preview of the post-Chevron difficulties courts will confront in grappling with technical questions best left to agency experts. Justice Neil Gorsuch, the author of the majority opinion, demonstrated that judges are not best placed to determine highly technical non-legal questions: He was clearly confused about the pollutant in question. The original opinion referred to “nitrous oxide” (laughing gas) five times instead of “nitrogen oxide,” an air pollutant that the EPA’s policy aimed to reduce. After the error gained traction on social media, the court issued a corrected opinion.
Uncertainly for U.S. Environmental Regulations
The Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and SEC v. Jarkesy decisions mean that federal agencies will not receive deference in interpreting their enabling legislation and no longer have the ability to enforce those regulations before administrative law judges. After Corner Post v. Federal Reserve, it is unclear when—or if—agency regulations will be free from potential legal challenges. And, in Ohio v. EPA, the Supreme Court inhibited the EPA’s ability to regulate air pollution on a national basis.
These recent Supreme Court decisions represent a seismic shift in the regulatory landscape and pose a particular threat to the federal government’s environmental protection regime. By limiting the power of federal agencies and extending the statute of limitations for challenging agency actions, these rulings introduce significant uncertainty and could provide an avenue for winding back environmental regulations that are already on the books. The full impact of these decisions will unfold over time, but their immediate effect is a substantial weakening of federal regulatory power and a suite of new tools for those seeking to challenge federal regulation.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Air Force Dodges PFAS Water Cleanup in Arizona, Citing Supreme Court Chevron Ruling
"The floodgate begins to open," said one observer. "The U.S. Air Force refuses to clean up their toxic chemical contamination citing the termination of the Chevron doctrine by the corrupt Supreme Court."
Aug 12, 2024
The United States Air Force has so far refused to comply with an Environmental Protection Agency order to develop a cleanup plan for drinking water in Tucson, Arizona, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling that overturned the Chevron doctrine, The Guardian reported Monday.
Air Force bases contributed to the contamination of the drinking water with toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often known as "forever chemicals" because they accumulate in the body, breaking down only very slowly. The compounds, which were introduced by chemical companies in the mid-20th century, are associated with a wide range of serious health conditions, including cancer.
In late May, the EPA ordered the Air Force and the Arizona Air National Guard to clean up the PFAS contamination of groundwater at a 10-square-mile site in Tucson, giving them 60 days to develop a plan.
In late June, the Supreme Court eliminated the Chevron doctrine, also called Chevron deference, which gave federal agencies latitude to interpret laws and establish regulations, and required judges to generally defer to their expert judgment. The landmark ruling, brought by the court's right-wing majority, cut away at the executive branch's ability to regulate pollution.
Progressive advocates warned that it would lead to corporate-backed legal challenges to environmental and health rules. As it turned out, corporations were not the only organizations ready to take advantage of the ruling. On July 18, the Air Force's lawyers wrote to the EPA arguing that the May order should be withdrawn due to the elimination of the Chevron doctrine; Arizona Public Media service AZPM reported that the Air Force formally requested that the order be dropped.
The Air Force's challenge is a unique one in that it pits one arm of the U.S. executive branch against another, and won't go to the courts, but both scientists and legal experts warned that it could be a sign of the hard-nosed approach that polluters could take following the Chevron ruling that favors them.
"The floodgate begins to open," Chris Nagano, a former scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wrote on social media in response to The Guardian's article. "The U.S. Air Force refuses to clean up their toxic chemical contamination citing the termination of the Chevron doctrine by the corrupt Supreme Court. I thought the Air Force was supposed to protect the American People?"
Deborah Ann Sivas, an environmental law expert at Stanford Law School, told The Guardian that the new ruling shouldn't affect the EPA's order and the Air Force seemed to be seeking to expand its scope to block regulatory action.
"It's very odd," she said. "It feels almost like an intimidation tactic, but it will be interesting to see if others take this approach and it bleeds over."
Legal experts say that, despite the Air Force's claim, the Supreme Court's recent ruling pertaining to Chevron shouldn't affect the EPA's enforcement actions, such as the May order—it should only affect the agency's rule-making process, The Guardian reported.
The order called for the Air Force and the Arizona Air National Guard to establish a filtration system designed specifically to remove PFAS, the estimated cost of which would be $25 million, or 0.1% of the Air Force's annual budget, the newspaper reported.
The affected 10-square-mile site is beneath Tucson International Airport, Air Force Plant #44, and the Morris Air National Guard base. It's been known to be extraordinarily polluted since long before the presence of PFAS was found—in fact, it was designated a Superfund site in the 1980s due to the presence of contaminants from solvents and degreasers.
Since 2016, samples from the site's groundwater have shown extraordinarily high levels of PFAS—as much as 53,000 parts per trillion, when the allowable legal limit for drinking water is between just 4 and 10 ppt, depending on the type of PFAS. However, a series of measures, including filtration, water diversion, and the closing of wells, have been taken so that such contaminated water is not in the local drinking supply.
There was a close call in 2021 in which contaminated water nearly breached the Tucson water supply, the EPA's order says, and though the city's water is currently safe, the issue remains concerning for locals, USA Today reported in June. It's also creates added costs.
"When we have an area where the water quality is impacted and we're not able to serve that to customers, that is an added cost. It really diminishes the resource that we have available," Natalie DeRoock, a spokesperson for Tucson Water, the local utility, told USA Today. DeRoock said that while Tucson pumps in some water from the Colorado River, it depends largely on groundwater, a finite resource.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Be Afraid: Here’s What ALEC Is Cooking Up at Its 51st Annual Meeting
State lawmakers, right-wing operatives, and corporate lobbyists are descending on the Rocky Mountain state to vote on model policies and resolutions that impact the environment, education, elections, fundamental human rights, and more.
Jul 26, 2024
The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, is holding its 51st Annual Meeting in Denver this week at the four-star Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center. ALEC state lawmakers, right-wing operatives, and corporate lobbyists are descending on the Rocky Mountain state to hear presentations and vote on model policies and resolutions that impact the environment, education, elections, fundamental human rights, and more.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D), Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, and GOP pollster Scott Rasmussen are slated to speak at the conference. Polis is the first high-profile Democrat to speak to the ALEC faithful in recent years.
The annual meeting officially kicked off Tuesday night with an anti-abortion “late night dessert and coffee reception” with national abortion ban proponent Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and “pre-recorded remarks” from pollster Kellyanne Conway, former U.S. President Donald Trump’s former senior counselor, to coach legislators on “how to communicate” about abortion during this fall’s campaign season. ALEC plotted its post-Dobbs strategy at its annual meeting last summer, and at least 684 state lawmakers affiliated with the group have voted to prohibit abortion access, a Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) analysis found.
Tuesday morning, the “Christian ALEC” (officially the National Association of Christian Lawmakers)—which circulates anti-abortion model legislation among its members—hosted a prayer breakfast for attendees.
ALEC Ramps Up Its Election Work
In June 2021, ALEC CEO Lisa Nelson wrote in Real Clear Politics, “ALEC doesn’t have ‘template legislation’ on voting because ALEC doesn’t work on voting issues.” CMD exposed that claim as a lie, revealing a Council for National Policy meeting video where she described the work ALEC was doing on the issue in targeted states and admitted to outsourcing model voting legislation to the Honest Elections Project (HEP).
ALEC has held at least three voter suppression summits with HEP, a voter suppression project of Leonard Leo’s 85 Fund, and last summer passed a model bill pushed by HEP banning ranked choice voting, the process by which voters rank candidates in order of preference on their ballots rather than simply voting in favor of a single candidate.
This week, ALEC members will consider model policies that align with HEP priorities laid out in its 2024 “Safeguarding Our Elections” report: the Citizen Only Voting Amendment and Only Citizens Vote Model Policy. While the voting amendment is targeted at prohibiting municipalities from allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, the model policy covers state and federal elections—even though it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in either. That push is part of what The New York Times describes as a wider GOP campaign designed to promote Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and “echoes the racist ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory.”
In January, the ostensibly “nonpartisan” ALEC announced that it is joining forces with Run GenZ to try to draw young voters to the GOP.
“In recent months, the specter of immigrants voting illegally in the U.S. has erupted into a leading election-year talking point for Republicans,” Politico reported. Republican-controlled legislatures in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin have placed constitutional amendments to ban noncitizen voting on the ballot this November as a way of driving GOP turnout.
ALEC is also offering a workshop on the nonissue of noncitizens voting, called “States Must Do: Protecting the Vote.” The description of the training claims “the threat of noncitizen participation in our U.S. elections is real.”
ALEC may claim this, but the facts prove otherwise. “Every legitimate study ever done on the question shows that voting by noncitizens in state and federal elections is vanishingly rare,” the Brennan Center reported. As the Brennan Center points out, even the Charles Koch-founded and funded Cato Institute determined that “noncitizens don’t illegally vote in detectable numbers.”
Meeting attendees will also debate on whether to approve The School Board Election Date Act, which would politicize school board elections across the country by requiring candidates to indicate a “political party designation” beginning in 2026 and mandating that they coincide with November elections every four years. In its Safeguarding Our Elections report, HEP recommends consolidating school board election dates with general elections in November.
Another workshop, called “Foreign Influence in American Campaigns,” will consider “options” state lawmakers have to “prevent foreign influence on state campaigns.” In the same report, HEP advises lawmakers to “ban foreign influence in ballot measure campaigns.”
In January, the ostensibly “nonpartisan” ALEC announced that it is joining forces with Run GenZ to try to draw young voters to the GOP. At the meeting, ALEC members can attend a “Boomer to Zoomer: Run GenZ Informational Meeting” to learn more about the right-wing youth candidate training partnership.
ALEC Steps Up Attacks on Strategies to Address Unfolding Climate Emergency
Meeting attendees will once again consider a number of pro-fossil fuel and climate-harming policies at the meeting this week.
Since the summer of 2021, CMD has repeatedly documented ALEC’s consideration and promotion of multiple model bills punishing companies and public entities that embrace environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG) in their business and investing practices.
Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild, an anti-ESG zealot, has become a regular speaker at ALEC meetings since it became a major sponsor, and ALEC has, in turn, promoted his attacks. Hild is again scheduled to speak at this week’s meeting and is likely the sponsor of the workshop, “America Runs on Energy: ESG and Grid Sustainability.” The description of the training claims that “activism in investing is far from new, but the push to give outsized importance to ESG scores has a deleterious effect on our nation’s power grid.” Of course, it mentions nothing about the unfolding climate crisis and its impact on the grid.
One bill, the Act to Define Clean Energy, would replace references to “renewable energy” with “clean energy,” so that “power generation supplied by nuclear fuel” can be promoted in green energy policies.
Model legislation up for a vote at the conference relates to the power grid. The Equitable Escalation of Electricity Demand Act, for example, blames rising electrical costs on electric vehicles (EVs) and Big Tech, and seeks to pass the increased costs on to EV owners and technology companies that manage large data centers.
Another model bill, the Electric Ratepayers Affordability and Reliability Advocacy Act, claims that consumer utility boards have been co-opted by “green energy” advocates and proposes the creation of a new statewide position, a “Ratepayer Affordability and Reliability Advocate” with the “singular mission” of advocating for “the most reliable, [lowest] cost form of electricity in a service area.”
ALEC members will also vote on a related bill, the Electricity Trajectory Management Act, which would stop the decommissioning of power plants that use coal, natural gas, water, or nuclear for energy generation and require building new ones in order to meet the increasing power demands EVs and data centers place on the grid.
Under ALEC’s draft Resolution Urging States to Not Allow the Use of IRIS Assessments to Inform its Rulemakings, state regulators would not be allowed to use the Environmental Protection Agency’s Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) “as the basis of hazard assessment or risk assessment decisions or as the basis to establish air, water or waste rulemaking.”
The Natural Asset Company Prohibition Act would ban this type of corporation. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) floated the idea of including “Natural Asset Companies” (NACs) on the New York Stock Exchange, but then backtracked. NACs are a new type of corporation that put a market value on ecosystems and natural resources and are organized to “actively manage, maintain, restore (as applicable), and grow the value of natural assets and their production.”
The State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF), the ALEC-tied group of Republican state treasurers, auditors, CFOs, and others weaponized to fight “woke capitalism” and ESG, and American Stewards of Liberty, the group tasked with upending Biden’s 30×30 executive order to help tackle the climate crisis, worked together to drum up opposition to NACs.
ALEC is also seeking to redefine terms used to promote sustainable energy to include traditional methods. One bill, the Act to Define Clean Energy, would replace references to “renewable energy” with “clean energy,” so that “power generation supplied by nuclear fuel” can be promoted in green energy policies. A related model up for consideration, The Affordable, Reliable and Clean Energy Security Act, would include natural gas and nuclear in the definition of “green energy.”
Smoothing the Way for States to Overturn Regulations after Chevron
Last month, the Supreme Court rejected 40 years of precedent and overturned the 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, summarily curtailing the power of federal agencies to interpret laws they administer and giving that power to the courts. The monumental decision provides an opening for lawyers to overturn regulations that address everything from the ongoing climate emergency to the healthcare crisis and workplace safety.
ALEC meeting attendees will hear a presentation titled, “After Relentless: What Will Chevron’s Revised Status Mean for State Officials?” and vote on model legislation to Establish the Office of Regulatory Management in the states. “This Office aims to enhance and utilize transparency to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens and ensure that new regulations are evidence-based and cost-effective,” the ALEC description reads.
Once an office is up and running, it is clear that the regulatory “transparency” created will be used by anti-regulation zealots and corporations to challenge regulations that conflict with their ideology or impact their profit models.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
Partisan legislative attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts from the right ramped up in 2023 and 2024, so it isn’t surprising that ALEC would provide model bills related to this to aid their members.
The Freedom from Indoctrination Act introduced this week prohibits universities and colleges from requiring DEI courses and prevents them from requiring first-year students to participate in DEI orientation activities. The model policy was first circulated by the right-wing Goldwater Institute and Speech First in April of 2023.
“During the 2023 legislative session alone, anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion bills were introduced in various states 40 separate times, and all of them addressed a combination of the same four objectives: ending mandatory DEI training, preventing the use of diversity statements in job applications and promotion materials, prohibiting hiring practices designed to increase diversity, and/or ending state funding for DEI offices and personnel altogether,” as CMD reported earlier this month.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, ALEC is circulating the SCOTUS Anti-Discrimination Implementation Act to officially ban affirmative action programs designed to increase diversity on campuses or make places of higher education reflective of local demographics.
ALEC is also asking its members to vote on the First Amendment Preservation Act, which would prevent any state agency—including universities—from contracting with “media monitoring organizations” or advertisers or marketing companies that work with these organizations.
The bill defines media monitoring organizations as groups that “rate or rank news and information sources for the factual accuracy of their content,” or “provide ratings or rankings of news sources based on misinformation, bias, adherence to journalistic standards, or ethics, including, but not limited to, organizations that claim to engage in fact checking or determining overall news accuracy.”
In other words, this bill seeks to protect those engaged in hate speech or the peddling of mis/disinformation by making it harder for state governments to assess the accuracy of information and by punishing private companies that work with fact checkers to prevent the spread of disinformation.
Education Privatization, Attacks on Free Speech, and AI Gun Detection in Schools
On January 30, ALEC launched the Education Freedom Alliance in partnership with the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and the Job Creators Network to further privatize K–12 education through Education Savings Accounts (ESA), or universal, tax-funded school vouchers.
The ALEC-led coalition set “its goal of expanding universal education freedom to 25 states by 2025,” but will struggle to reach that target after only passing three ESA bills—in Alabama, Louisiana, and Missouri—so far this year, bringing the total to 12. ALEC and Charles Koch’s yes. every kid advocacy group will promote ESAs to ALEC attendees in a two-part workshop titled “The New Frontier: ESAs and Beyond.”
ALEC is also asking members to vote on the Microschool Education Act, which would give home-based or micro-school entities of 100 or fewer students the same rights as private and charter schools. Koch and the Walton Family Foundation are major backers of this latest school privatization effort.
Opponents fear that since this definition includes any criticism of Israel, relying on it will expose anti-war and pro-Palestinian activists to prosecution or hate crime charges for simply speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza or occupation of Palestine.
ALEC’s American City County Exchange project will vote on the ACCE Model County Code Ordinance, which would streamline zoning for microschools.
In direct attacks on the First Amendment rights of students, ALEC meeting attendees will consider an Act to Prohibit Antisemitism in State K–20 Educational Institutions and an Act to Adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism.
The first bill appears to be positive on the surface, but within the text it states that, “The Working Definition of Antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Alliance (IHRA) that contains contemporary examples of antisemitism may also be used to identify antisemitism.”
Opponents fear that since this definition includes any criticism of Israel, relying on it will expose anti-war and pro-Palestinian activists to prosecution or hate crime charges for simply speaking out against Israel’s war in Gaza or occupation of Palestine, as Truthout reported in an article tying ALEC to the effort to codify the weaponized definition of antisemitism.
The second model bill would officially adopt the IHRA definition. ALEC, along with representatives from the Israeli government and the Heritage Foundation, has been pushing state lawmakers to adopt the IHRA definition since as early as 2021.
Lastly, in a bizarre attempt to address the public health crisis of gun violence in our nation’s schools, ALEC is promoting the Use of AI Firearm Detection Software in Schools. The model bill would allow state departments of education to use taxpayer money to buy AI gun detection software.
For many years, ALEC worked with the National Rifle Association (NRA) and Gun Owners of America to develop legislation to loosen gun regulations, promote stand-your-ground laws, allow concealed handguns on college campuses, and prevent cities from suing gun manufacturers, and many others.
Redefining States’ Rights
ALEC may be spoiling for a fight in the U.S. Supreme Court to radically curtail federal powers. Up for consideration at this week’s annual meeting are two bills that would do just that.
The Presumption of State Jurisdiction Amendments, based on legislation in Utah according to the text, declares state sovereignty and jurisdiction over “natural resources; water resources and water rights; agriculture; education; and energy resources,” unless the federal government can show that “jurisdiction over the subject matter in question is specifically enumerated to the federal government under the Constitution.”
Earlier this year, Utah passed the Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act, which empowers its legislature to “prohibit a government officer from enforcing or assisting in the enforcement of a federal directive within the state if the Legislature determines the federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty.”
Now ALEC members are asking to vote on the same model. University of Utah Law Professor Robert Keiter told CNN after the bill passed there that “if the legislature actually passes a concurrent resolution and overrules a federal regulation, then it will likely be overturned due to the Supremacy Clause.”
Banning Squatting
ALEC members will have the opportunity to debate and vote on a couple of models related to squatting, or the occupying of property by anyone who doesn’t own it or have permission to live in it.
The Stop Squatters Act prohibits anyone from the unauthorized entry or occupation of residential or commercial properties, creates a process for having law enforcement remove squatters, and enacts penalties of a misdemeanor if damages are less than $1,000 or a felony if they exceed $1,000. The bill mirrors a model circulated by the right-wing litigation center Pacific Legal Foundation. ALEC is also circulating a Statement of Principles on Illegal Possession of Private Property on the issue.
Squatting data is sparse, and Juan Pablo Garnham, a researcher and communications manager at Princeton University’s Eviction Lab, told The Washington Post in April that “squatting is ‘an extremely rare issue’” in the U.S.
Another Attack on Public Sector Unions
ALEC has long loathed public sector unions and circulated model policies weakening their power. The new so-called Public Employees’ Bill of Rights in front of its membership this week seeks to do the same by mandating that non-dues-paying members be given “equal rights” within a union.
The model bill also allows public employees to sue their unions and obtain a “full accounting” of union activities and dues.
ALEC publishes an anti-union playbook that was recently updated to include bills that target independent contractors and occupational licensing, CMD reported.
Other Drafts up for Consideration
- Act Establishing Foreign Wire Transfer Fees
- ALEC Statement of Principles for Teen Use of Social Media
- An Act Relating to the Creation of an Environmental Restoration Accelerator
- An Act to Identify and Report Certain Foreign-Related Transactions to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
- Birth Freedom Act
- Charitable Organizations Privacy Protection Act
- Chronic Absenteeism Model Policy
- Dental Therapists Act
- Expanding Physician Access Act
- Family Rights in Medical Investigations Act
- Housing Opportunities Made Easier (HOME) Act
- Increasing Light-Touch Density Housing Act
- Joint and Several Liability Act
- Memorandum of Understanding on Economic Cooperation and Trade Relations between this State and the United Kingdom
- Model Policy to Protect Select US Land from Ownership by America’s Foreign Adversaries
- Model State Artificial Intelligence Act
- Military Spouse Licensure Act
- Pacific Conflict Stress Test Act
- Patient and Pharmacy Protection Act
- Prohibiting Cell Phones in K-12 Classrooms
- Reaffirmation of the US Commitment to Taiwan on the 45th Anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act
- Recall of Elected Civic Leaders and Integrity Measures (RECLAIM) Act
- Resolution on the Importance of Pursuing Comprehensive Trade Agreements with Trusted Trading Partners
- Resolution Opposing the Imposition or Expansion of Digital Trade Barriers
- Resolution Reaffirming Support for the U.S. State-Based System of Title Insurance Regulation in Response to Growing Federal Encroachment
- Resolution To Adopt The “Think Differently” Initiative To Assist Individuals With Special Needs And Their Families
- Resolution to Create a County Employee Recognition Program
- Safeguarding American Families Everywhere (SAFE) Act
- Sexual Offenses Against Children Act
- Short-Term Rental Tax Policy
- The “Only Pay for What You Get” Ensuring Reliable and Affordable Electricity Act
- Truth in Electricity Generation Labeling Act
- Unlawful Release of a Minor’s Identifying Information
- Victim and Witness Address Confidentiality Act
- Victim Impact Statement Act
- Workforce Housing Tax Incentives Program
Keep ReadingShow Less
Warren Bill Would Overturn Supreme Court Decision Gutting Federal Agency Power
"The Supreme Court's overturning of Chevron undermines our government's ability to promote worker safety, ensure clean air and water, and protect consumers," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
Jul 23, 2024
In response to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Sen. Elizabeth Warren said exemplified corporations' effort to "hijack our government," the Massachusetts Democrat on Tuesday introduced legislation to effectively overturn the decision and return regulatory powers to federal agencies.
Warren led a group of senators in the Democratic caucus in introducing the Stop Corporate Capture Act (SCCA) less than a month after the high court ruled on Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, overturning the "Chevron deference" precedent that had been recognized for four decades.
The legal rule required courts to defer to federal agencies' interpretation of a law if Congress had not passed legislation specifically addressing the issue, and permitted public servants in the federal government to craft regulations related to climate protections, workers' rights, and other crucial issues affecting millions of people in the United States.
The Loper Bright ruling last month, said Warren, made clear that "giant corporations are using far-right, unelected judges to... undermine the will of Congress."
"The Stop Corporate Capture Act will bring transparency and efficiency to the federal rulemaking process, and most importantly, will make sure corporate interest groups can't substitute their preferences for the judgment of Congress and the expert agencies," said the senator.
Specific actions the legislation would take include:
- Streamlining the White House's review period for regulations, creating a 120-day time limit for review;
- Authorizing agencies to reinstate rules that are rescinded by Congress through the Congressional Review Act;
- Creating an Office of the Public Advocate to help members of the public participate more effectively in regulatory proceedings;
- Requiring agencies to respond to citizen petitions for rulemaking that contain 100,000 or more signatures;
- Establishing financial penalties for corporate special interests that knowingly submit false information during the rulemaking process; and
- Requiring all rulemaking participants to disclose industry-funded research or other related conflicts of interest.
Without Chevron deference, said Warren's office in a statement, "industry-backed lobbyists hold more negotiating power in the regulatory process than the general public. They schedule private meetings with regulators, fund sham scientific studies to submit with public comments, and misrepresent the negative impact of stricter regulatory oversight. These actions slow down the enforcement of important regulations, and the American people pay the price."
"The Supreme Court's overturning of Chevron undermines our government's ability to promote worker safety, ensure clean air and water, and protect consumers," the statement added.
The bill has been endorsed by dozens of public interest groups including the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards (CSS), the Consumer Federation of America, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Earthjustice.
"The Loper Bright decision severely undermined the ability of expert federal agencies and Congress to address our most pressing environmental and health challenges, and instead, transferred an inordinate amount of power to judges who lack the profound understanding needed to craft federal regulations," said Raúl García, vice president of policy and legislation for Earthjustice. "This bill rightly remedies an egregious power grab from the U.S. Supreme Court while creating a more transparent and equitable federal rulemaking process. We thank senators for fighting to ensure that expert federal agencies have the power and mandate to protect the people who need these protections the most, not greedy corporations concerned more about their profits."
Rachel Weintraub, executive director of CSS, said the legislation is a "comprehensive blueprint for modernizing, improving, and strengthening the regulatory system to better protect the public."
"The bill would enhance our government's ability to deliver results for workers, consumers, public health, and our environment," said Weintraub. "And it would level the playing field so that ordinary people—not just big corporations—can weigh in on potential rules that affect them."
Earlier this month, CSS explained how the SCCA would save "our system of public protections," which the Republican Party and the right-wing policy agenda are out to "destroy."
U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who introduced similar legislation in the House in March 2023, said the bill "couldn't be more critical after the extreme, conservative Supreme Court stripped the ability of governmental agencies to implement and enforce passed laws."
"Many Americans are taught in civics classes that Congress passes a law and that’s it, but the reality is that any major legislation enacted must also be implemented and enforced by the dedicated, nonpartisan experts at our public agencies to become a reality," said Jayapal. "Too often, this process is driven by corporate lobbyists and special interests who know exactly how to make these processes benefit their bottom lines at the cost of public interest... I am proud to lead this bill, which will level the playing field and ensure that laws passed for the people actually work for the people."
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Supreme Court’s Billionaire Buddies Just Made Your Life Worse
The assault by the six right-wing justices on the Chevron doctrine is an assault on everyday people, carried out on behalf of corporations and the Court’s wealthy benefactors.
Jul 13, 2024
Last month, the Supreme Court broke with four decades of precedent and overturned Chevron deference, a cornerstone of administrative law that has been cited by federal courts over 18,000 times. The 6-3 ruling, handed down on party lines in the cases Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce, eliminated a judicial doctrine that had long instructed federal courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous or unclear laws passed by Congress, rather than have judges act as regulatory policy-makers.
Chevron deference was established in the 1984 Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council for two main reasons. First, because federal agencies are staffed with career civil servants and subject matter experts like scientists, researchers, and data analysts who understand the nitty-gritty details of regulatory policy-making far better than any given judge. Second was the importance of democratic accountability and the separation of powers, with Justice John Paul Stevens writing in the Chevron decision that “federal judges—who have no constituency—have a duty to respect legitimate policy choices made by those who do.”
In her blistering dissent for Loper Bright, Justice Elena Kagan excoriated the Court’s right-wing majority for “giv[ing] itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law.” The Court itself had inadvertently showcased the danger of having judges act as regulatory experts a day earlier, when Justice Neil Gorsuch repeatedly confused the air pollutant nitrogen oxide with the anesthetic nitrous oxide (more commonly known as “laughing gas”).
But Chevron’s repeal is no laughing matter. Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Curiously, Chevron was once celebrated by conservatives (including the late Antonin Scalia), as it allowed the Reagan administration to continue its industry-friendly regulatory approach unimpeded by the more liberal federal courts at the time (the DC Circuit ruling overturned by SCOTUS in Chevron was written by then-circuit judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg). But over the past decade, as Democrats regained control of the executive branch and used Chevron deference to check corporate power, conservatives have changed their tune. Aided by the GOP’s packing of the courts with Federalist Society alumni, the conservative legal movement and Big Business now see the unelected judiciary as the best long-term venue for dismantling the administrative state.
Allowing unelected, lifetime-appointed federal judges to invalidate countless regulatory protections based purely on their own political preferences will open the floodgates to a corporate legal assault on crucial regulatory protections—from clean air and water, to food and drug safety, to labor and civil rights.
Their most powerful ally in this effort has been Justice Clarence Thomas, a former supporter of Chevron doctrine whose about-face has been equally opportunistic. According to The Lever, Thomas—who wrote a landmark opinion upholding Chevron in 2005—began working to overturn the doctrine after he and his wife received lavish undisclosed gifts and financial support from wealthy conservative benefactors, including real estate mogul Harlan Crow and Federalist Society leader Leonard Leo. Records unearthed by ProPublica have also revealed that Thomas was invited to fundraising events held by fossil fuel billionaire Charles Koch, whose donor network has long sought the overturning of Chevron.
These wealthy benefactors played a hidden role in the successful overturning of Chevron this term by using the disputes about federal fishing fees in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases as stalking horses against the doctrine. Petitioners in both cases were represented pro bono by lawyers with close ties to the Koch network. In Loper Bright, herring fisherman Bill Bright was represented by three lawyers who also work for Americans for Prosperity, one of the Koch Network’s most prominent organizations. In Relentless, the petitioners were likewise represented free of charge by the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), a right-wing litigation group that has received over $5 million from Koch-affiliated organizations and $4 million from Leonard Leo’s dark money groups.
The Court’s power brokers have also used amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs to engage in judicial lobbying. In Loper Bright and Relentless, we found 19 examples of this practice. Right-wing think tanks Cato Institute, Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Texas Public Policy Foundation—who all filed anti-Chevron doctrine amicus briefs in Loper Bright—have received millions in donations from Koch organizations. The Board of Trustees for the Manhattan Institute, another Koch-funded Loper Bright amicus filer, is chaired by Justice Samuel Alito’s wealthy fishing buddy Paul Singer and counts Harlan Crow’s wife Kathy among its members. Leonard Leo has similarly bankrolled several amicus filers, including the Mike Pence-led Advancing American Freedom, the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, and (conspicuously) the recently-launched fishing industry lobby group NEFSA.
Despite these flagrant conflicts of interest, neither Justice Thomas nor Justice Alito recused themselves from Loper Bright or Relentless. In fact, the only Justice to recuse from either Chevron case was Ketanji Brown Jackson, who had participated in oral arguments for Loper Bright while serving as a circuit judge.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term.
The Loper Bright decision is already bearing fruit for its corporate supporters. Just hours after the decision, Eastern District of Texas Judge Sean D. Jordan cited it in his decision to partially block a Department of Labor rule that would have made over 4 million workers eligible for overtime pay. Loper Bright has also been cited in at least four other legal challenges against the DOL’s protections for tipped and gig workers, as well as a new lawsuit filed by three New Jersey hospitals against HHS rules governing Medicare reimbursement. Experts at the Center for American Progress have outlined the many other regulatory protections that could be at risk post-Chevron, including fair housing and anti-discrimination rules, relief for student borrowers, the EPA’s new vehicle and power plant emissions standards, and the CFPB’s crackdown on predatory junk fees.
The devastating impact of Chevron repeal has been compounded by other radical party-line power-grabs made by the Court this term. In SEC v. Jarkesy, the conservative majority made it much harder for the federal government to prosecute white collar criminals, while also threatening the structure of many administrative agencies. And in Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the Justices functionally eliminated the statute of limitations for challenging new federal regulations. In her dissent for the latter, Justice Jackson warned that “the tsunami of lawsuits against agencies that the Court's holdings in this case and Loper Bright have authorized has the potential to devastate the functioning of the Federal Government.”
Of course for the right-wing, devastation is the goal. The Court’s dismantling of the administrative state follows Donald Trump’s own attempt to do so in the waning days of his presidency through the short-lived Schedule F scheme, which would have empowered the president to fire thousands of career civil servants at will and replace them with political loyalists. Though repealed by the Biden administration, restoring Schedule F remains a central plank of both Trump’s 2024 campaign and the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power.
If nothing else, the end of Chevron should end debate among court-watchers as to whether any of the Roberts Court’s six conservative members (including Loper Bright author John Roberts himself) are “moderate.” Loper Bright is one more example in a series of landmark rulings— including Citizens United v. FEC, Janus v. AFSCME, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, and the recent Trump v. United States—which reveal what John Roberts and his Court actually care about. They have no regard for long-held precedent or for the rule of law, only far-reaching power-grabs that benefit the Federalist Society and Big Business. Their flagrant disregard for judicial ethics and the separation of powers should compel Congress to rein in the Court’s unchecked power by codifying Chevron deference into law, enacting a binding and enforceable Supreme Court ethics code, impeaching Justices Thomas and Alito, and expanding the Supreme Court.
Corporate actors and right-wing activists are attacking the administrative state because they know how important it is for protecting the public from unchecked corporate power. So long as the Supreme Court retains its corrupt right-wing majority, the future looks bright for Big Business. For the rest of us, the Court’s relentless power-grabs will make everyday life much worse.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Bernie Sanders: Right-Wing Supreme Court 'Out of Control' and Must Be Stopped
"At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, billionaire control of our political system, and major threats to the foundations of American democracy, it is clear to me that we need real Supreme Court reform."
Jul 02, 2024
In the aftermath of the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court's potentially deadly rampage against federal regulators, its ruling in support of the criminalization of homelessness, and its decision to grant former President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution, Sen. Bernie Sanders said late Monday that nation's highest judicial body is "out of control" and must be reined in before it can inflict even more damage.
"Over the years, among other disastrous rulings, this right-wing court has given us Citizens United, which created a corrupt, billionaire-dominated political system," Sanders (I-Vt.) said in a statement. "It overturned Roe v. Wade, removing women's constitutional right to control their own bodies. Last week, the court chose to criminalize poverty by banning homeless encampments in public spaces—forcing more poor people into the cycle of debt and poverty."
"With the Chevron case," the senator continued, "they have made it far more difficult for the government to address the enormous crises we face in terms of climate change, public health, workers' rights, and many other areas. And, today, the court ruled in favor of broad presidential immunity, making it easier for Trump and other politicians to break the law without accountability."
"A strong, enforceable code of ethics is a start, but just a start. We'll need much more than that."
Such far-reaching and devastating decisions, Sanders argued, highlight the extent to which unelected Supreme Court justices—with the backing of
right-wing billionaires and corporations bent on sweeping away all regulatory constraints—have arrogated policymaking authority to themselves with disastrous consequences for U.S. society and the world.
"If these conservative justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office," said Sanders. "At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, billionaire control of our political system, and major threats to the foundations of American democracy, it is clear to me that we need real Supreme Court reform. A strong, enforceable code of ethics is a start, but just a start. We'll need much more than that."
The Supreme Court is out of control.
If these conservative right-wing, corporate-sponsored justices want to make public policy, they should simply quit the Supreme Court and run for political office. pic.twitter.com/jrm3ZdSti8
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) July 1, 2024
Sanders did not make specific reform recommendations beyond an ethics code in his statement Monday, but he has previously suggested rotating judges off the Supreme Court—which would effectively end lifetime appointments.
The Vermont senator's progressive colleagues floated a range of possible actions following the high court's presidential immunity ruling on Monday, including adding seats to the Supreme Court and impeaching individual justices.
"Today's decision, along with the court's decision to overturn Chevron, is an assault on the separation of powers under the Constitution," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in response to the court's ruling in Corner Post Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
"An extremist Supreme Court stacked by Donald Trump has snatched power away from an elected Congress and handed lawmaking power over to a few far-right unelected judges," Warren added. "This Supreme Court is undermining the foundations of our democracy; Congress must restore balance by adding more justices to the court."
The Supreme Court's recent flurry of rulings has already thrown
existing cases into chaos and opened the floodgates to new corporate-backed lawsuits against longstanding federal regulations.
The Washington Post reported Sunday that "mere hours after the Supreme Court sharply curbed the power of federal agencies" by scrapping the Chevron doctrine, "conservatives and corporate lobbyists began plotting how to harness the favorable ruling in a redoubled quest to whittle down climate, finance, health, labor, and technology regulations in Washington."
"The National Association of Manufacturers, a lobbying group whose board of directors includes top executives from Dow, Caterpillar, ExxonMobil, and Johnson & Johnson, specifically called attention to what it described as regulatory overreach at the [Securities and Exchange Commission] and the Environmental Protection Agency," the Post noted.
The
U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest corporate lobbying organization, and the American Petroleum Institute were also among the big business groups applauding the fall of Chevron, fueling calls for Congress to codify the doctrine into federal law.
The American Prospect's Hassan Ali Kanu wrote Tuesday that the high court's latest term has "demonstrated how lacking our system is in terms of safeguards that can prevent or correct the Supreme Court when it oversteps its authority or engages in unjustified exercises of power."
"President Joe Biden's commission to explore Supreme Court reform produced a number of viable and sensible options," Kanu continued. "Congress could curtail or end judicial review, the power the court aggregated to itself to exclusively interpret the Constitution."
"Even more modest proposals could further democratize the Court and judiciary, like prohibiting them from declining to apply laws passed by Congress unless they have at least a supermajority vote; or implementing sortition, random assignment, and rotation into the process of appointing or assigning judges to the Supreme Court," he added. "At this point, when a six-member majority is literally declaring a former president who appointed three of them to be functionally above the law, against all prevailing opinion, scholarship, analysis, and experience, the case for court reform couldn't be clearer."
Keep ReadingShow Less
A Vicious Right-Wing Supreme Court Helps the Neoliberal Empire Strike Back
"With fear for our democracy," said Justice Sonia Sotomayor, "I dissent."
Jul 02, 2024
Following twin court rulings Monday, the Washington Post should update its “Democracy Dies in Darkness” banner. The MAGA Supreme Court has coldly and emphatically demonstrated this term that both democracy—and many of the public protections American families and workers count on—die in public, but only if we let it.
The cascade of disastrous and even deadly rulings will rightfully put a long-term stain on what is likely the most far-right Supreme Court since the monstrous days of Jim Crow. Especially if Trump is allowed to return to office and run a bulldozer over every vestige of what has constituted political and legal norms in the nation for at least the past half century.
But, there’s another point that much of the torrent of coverage has somewhat overlooked. Opponents of Trump and Trumpism have held out hope that the Republican Party old guard would somehow wake up and cast aside the wannabe dictator they have unleashed on the country.
Our challenge is to support legislation to reverse these decisions, and to defeat Trump and everything Trumpism and neoliberalism stands for in November.
Especially in its cascade of decisions “kneecapping the administrative state,” as Slate writer Mark Joseph Stern puts it, the Court has unambiguously embraced a principle goal of solidifying in legal precedent pro-corporate neoliberal policies that drove much of traditional Republican philosophy, especially since the first days of the Reagan administration. The centerpiece was the Court’s ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo reversing the so-called 1994 Chevron deference case under which regulatory agencies were given authority to interpret, implement, and enforce ambiguous laws passed by Congress. The Court’s ruling effectively signals that the neoliberalism empire has struck back.
It marks a massive triumph for deregulation that Sherrilyn Ifill, law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, aptly termed “a seismic shift in how U.S. government operates,” with “devastating and potentially catastrophic” consequences.
The traditional Wall Street wing of the Republican Party (which also mostly governs the Democratic Party establishment) had already, despite some ballyhooed misgivings over Trump’s multitude of criminal and autocratic behavior, welcomed Trump’s one major accomplishment of his first term — the massive tax gift for big business and the uber rich.
No doubt already salivating over Trump’s pledge to extend and expand his 2017 law, which slashed the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and handed the 296 most profitable corporations a $240 billion dollar tax present, the corporate tycoons and their most devout legislators now have another reason to hug Trump tightly. That would be the vision of agencies—purged of perceived enemies—overseeing environmental, food safety, workplace standards, worker and union rights, and so many other critical protections eliminated by a new Trump administration stacked with Trump cult loyalists.
They can also probably be ready to overlook the new power the Court on Monday granted Trump to emulate the worst criminality of Mussolini, Franco, or King George (what was that 1776 ruckus about anyway?). As Chief Justice Roberts wrote, Trump gets “a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” As if Trump or his enablers will ever really distinguish official from non-official acts. The Strict Scrutiny podcast offers probably the best analysis.
In her dissent, for once dropping the polite “respectfully” from her dissent wording, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made the consequences abundantly clear.
When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organize a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune. Immune… Never in the history of our Republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
Will the neoliberal establishment be at peace with a dictator like Pinochet? We now know the answer to that question. Citing political historian Karl Polanyi, American Prospect co-founder Robert Kuttner in 2019 warned, “in regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements.”
Neoliberalism has a few godfathers, beginning with Austrian academic Friedrich Hayek who in the late 1930s and 1940s was railing against President Roosevelt’s New Deal and Britian’s post-World War II embrace of such reforms as creation of the National Health service, as “manifestations of a collectivism,” wrote George Monbiot.
Another was infamous economist Milton Friedman, who in a celebratory tour of apartheid South Africa in 1976, wrote Zachary Carter, delivered a diatribe against “political democracy—an explicit rejection of, in Friedman’s words, ‘one person, one vote,’ delivered to a nation in which more than half of the population was disenfranchised by race.”
Will the neoliberal establishment be at peace with a dictator like Pinochet? We now know the answer to that question.
Hayek and Friedman both enthusiastically embraced Pinochet’s brutal coup and subsequent repressive policies in Chile. In “Democracy in Chains,” historian Nancy MacLean notes Hayek visited Pinochet, voicing distaste with “unlimited democracy,” and Friedman endorsed his policies of “shock treatment.” Economist James Buchanan, also a prominent advocate of neoliberal policies, helped guide Pinochet’s rewrite of his country’s constitution to put democracy “in chains,” which to this day continues to hamstring efforts at political reform in Chile.
In advocating market fundamentalism, Hayek and Friedman, says Kuttner, “promoted rules created by and for private owners of capital, to keep democratic government from asserting rules of fair competition or countervailing social interests.”
Thus, the tenets of neoliberal policy—lifting all constraints from capital, of which deregulation is a central focus, privatization, austerity through starving, if not outright elimination, of social programs, and decapitating worker resistance with a frontal attack on unions and worker’s rights. Neoliberalism in the U.S. was a counter revolution to progressive government social and political reforms of the 1950s and 1960s that raised standards of living, especially for white American workers and families.
One starting date was the infamous 1971 Powell Memo, authored by future Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell who called for political combat: “Business must learn the lesson . . . that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination.”
While President Jimmy Carter carried out some deregulation, especially on airlines, it was President Ronald Reagan who supercharged neoliberalism. His first act, notably, was to break the air-traffic controllers’ union, firing the federal employees who had gone on strike and presiding over decertification of their union. Chevron, explains Ian Millhiser, was originally established by the Supreme Court in 1984 to limit decisions by lower federal courts dominated by Democratic appointees who were “prone to striking down the Reagan administration’s deregulatory actions.”
It matters when those administrative agencies are staffed by scientists who write rules to limit toxic smog, and other experts who work to ensure that health plans cover basic medical services, ensure the safety of drugs and protect consumers from risky corporate financial behavior,” as they were especially under President Biden, and not by opponents of regulatory public protections, such as Reagan and Trump.
Other Democratic presidents have been co-signers of deregulation and other elements of neoliberalism, notably President Clinton with his deregulation of key banking regulation that led directly to the 2008 financial meltdown. But Biden has attacked much of the underpinnings of neoliberalism in his most important domestic policies.
In his first address to Congress, Biden, unlike Clinton, vigorously defended the role of government, saying “public investment and infrastructure has literally transformed America,” bringing us railroads, highways, schools, colleges, vaccines, the internet, and “so much more.” As Eric Levitz wrote last year, “this defense of state intervention in markets crescendoed with the declaration that, in our democracy, the government is 'you and I' and not some powerful force that we have no control over. It’s us.”
Even in the face of obstruction from nearly unanimous Republican opposition, and limits by conservative Democrats, Biden successfully shepherded passage of major legislation extending aid for families devastated by the pandemic, and enacted critical health care reforms, especially for seniors, and a major infrastructure program. His agencies also initiated challenges to corporate malfeasance such as anti-trust challenges and price gouging that were a major cause of inflation. And, of course, Biden was the most pro-labor president, especially his policies through the National Labor Relations Board and Occupational Safety and Health Administration, since at least President Roosevelt.
That was the intended target of the Court’s anti-regulatory cases, attacking the Environmental Protection Agency, the Security and Exchanges Commission, and all other administrative agencies in the Looper Bright case, transferring authority to the courts, especially the MAGA court.
Under that decision, Millhiser explains “questions like whether a product derived from red rice yeast, which purportedly helps promote healthy cholesterol levels, counts as a “drug” or a “dietary supplement” under federal law? Under Chevron, this question would be decided by FDA officials who’ve spent decades studying drugs and dietary supplements. Now it will be resolved by political appointees with law degrees and black robes.”
It is no coincidence that the Koch network were the main financial backers of the case that formed the basis of Looper Bright. The billionaire Koch brothers, who built their massive wealth through the fossil fuel industry have a direct line from decades of also funding an entire academic and legal industry of neoliberalism and deregulatory challenges in particular.
Law professor Kate Shaw adds, “an error in one of this week’s opinions provided a stark illustration of the costs of the court’s lack of expertise: On Thursday, in the case dealing with the Environmental Protection Agency—Ohio v. E.P.A.—the released version of the majority opinion made five references to “nitrous oxide,” commonly referred to as laughing gas, rather than the “nitrogen oxide” compounds at issue. The error was quickly fixed, but no agency official working on the regulation of this compound would have made such an error—and in many ways that is Chevron’s whole point.” She also noted the tortured and factual misleading explanations the court majority concocted to justify its pro-gun violence ruling defending murderous bump stocks.
The Court even found a way Monday to make it worse with a follow-up ruling. In a decision that handed corporations even more time to challenge regulations, “ruling that a six-year statute of limitations for filing lawsuits begins to run when a regulation first affects a company rather than when it is first issued.” But in reality, the Strict Scrutiny law professors said, the decision “massively expands the amount of time that essentially anybody has to challenge an agency rule if they don’t like it. Even if the rule has been on the books for years or decades.”
In her dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted, “the court’s baseless conclusion means there is effectively no longer any limitations period for lawsuits that challenge agency regulations… Allowing every new commercial entity to bring fresh facial challenges to long existing regulations is profoundly destabilizing for both government and businesses. It also allows well-heeled litigants to game the system by creating new entities or finding new plaintiffs whenever they blow past the statutory deadline.”
Amidst the wreckage of this decision, we also have to point to the weak defense of public safety regulation by decades of too many Democratic elected officials, and the broader public.
With the arrival of summer, many families plan family visits to county fairs, amusement parks, or traveling carnivals. They’ll hop on roller coasters and other thrill seeker rides probably not dwelling on what keeps them safe on those sometimes aging, rickety contraptions. I spent two summers in my youth working for a traveling carnival, marveling at all those people lining up for journeys on clearly dubious, creaking machines.
Whether federal, state or local regulatory agencies, most Americans assume someone is looking out for their safety. We rely on public oversight and enforceable standards and rules established by experienced and expert civil servants at regulatory agencies.
We rarely stop to think about the importance of what these agencies do, but we ignore their key role at our peril. As Georgetown University Law Center professor Lisa Heinzerling, who previously served in the EPA, told Slate “people care when their drinking water is contaminated with lead. They care if their medicines aren’t safe and effective, or if somebody takes all the money out of their investment accounts.” Or when you board a plane and hope the doors don’t fly off today, or go to a hospital for emergency medical care when you can’t breathe because the local refinery released toxic emissions into the air.
It’s time to care. It’s long past time to mount that defense of the positive role government and regulatory work in the public interest can and must do. Our challenge is to support legislation to reverse these decisions, and to defeat Trump and everything Trumpism and neoliberalism stands for in November.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The End of the Chevron Doctrine Is Good for Chevron and Bad for the Earth
The elimination of Chevron deference significantly impacts the ability of federal agencies to enforce regulations—particularly those related to environmental protection and climate change.
Jul 02, 2024
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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Progressive Dems Call for Codifying Chevron After 'Dangerous' Supreme Court Ruling
"I plan to introduce legislation to protect the government's policymaking ability that existed under Chevron that has worked for the last 40 years," Sen. Ed Markey said.
Jun 29, 2024
Following the Supreme Court's ruling on Friday overturning the so-called Chevron doctrine—which instructed courts to defer to federal agencies' reasonable interpretations of laws passed by Congress as they regulate everything from food safety to labor rights to climate pollution—progressive lawmakers vowed to take action to protect the power of these agencies to shield the public from toxic chemicals and unscrupulous employers.
Legislators expressed concerns about the impacts of the court's 6-3 ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which ended a 40-year precedent established by Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council in 1984.
"Now, with this ill-advised decision, judges must no longer defer to the decisions about Americans' health, safety, and welfare made by agencies with technical and scientific expertise in their fields," Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in a statement. "MAGA extremist Republicans and their big business cronies are rejoicing as they look forward to creating a regulatory black hole that destroys fundamental protections for every American in this country."
"This unhinged Supreme Court needs to stop legislating from the bench, and we must pass sweeping reform to hold them accountable."
"I plan to introduce legislation to protect the government's policymaking ability that existed under Chevron that has worked for the last 40 years," Markey said.
Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) called the ruling "dangerous" and urged Congress to "immediately pass" the Stop Corporate Capture Act, which she introduced in March 2023.
In a statement Friday, Jayapal said the act was "the only bill that codifies Chevron deference, strengthens the federal-agency rulemaking process, and ensures that rulemaking is guided by the public interest—not what's good for wealthy corporations."
The act would codify Chevron by providing "statutory authority for the judicial principle that requires courts to defer to an agency's reasonable or permissible interpretation of a federal law when the law is silent or ambiguous."
In addition, it would:
- Require anyone submitting a study as part of a comment period on a regulation to disclose who funded it;
- Only allow federal agencies to take part in the negotiated rulemaking process;
- Create an Office of the Public Advocate to increase public participation in the process of crafting regulations;
- Make public companies that knowingly lie in the comment period on a proposed regulation liable for a fine of at least $250,000 for a first offense and at least $1 million for a second; and
- Empower agencies to reissue rules that were rescinded under the Congressional Review Act.
The Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, a group of more than 160 organizations mobilizing for stronger public protections, also called on Congress to pass the Stop Corporate Capture Act.
"The bill is a comprehensive blueprint for modernizing, improving, and strengthening the regulatory system to better protect the public," the coalition wrote in response to Friday's ruling. "It would ensure greater public input into regulatory decisions, promote scientific integrity, and restore our government's ability to deliver results for workers, consumers, public health, and our environment."
Jayapal also called on Congress to "enact sweeping oversight measures to rein in corruption and billionaire influence at the Supreme Court, whose far-right extremist majority routinely flouts basic ethics, throws out precedent, and legislates from the bench to benefit the wealthiest and most powerful."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) similarly recommended congressional action to address court corruption. In a statement, she called the decision "a power grab for the corrupt Supreme Court who continues to do the bidding of greedy corporations."
"The MAGA Court just overruled 40 years of precedent that empowered federal agencies to hold powerful corporations accountable, protect our workplaces and public health, and ensure that we have clean water and air," Tlaib continued. "This unhinged Supreme Court needs to stop legislating from the bench, and we must pass sweeping reform to hold them accountable."
In the meantime, the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards said that the ruling did not strip regulatory bodies of their authority to pass new rules to protect the public and the environment.
"This decision is a gift to big corporations, making it easier for them to challenge rules to ensure clean air and water, safe workplace and products, and fair commercial and financial practices," said Public Citizen president and coalition co-chair Robert Weissman. "But the decision is no excuse for regulators to stop doing their jobs. They must continue to follow the law and uphold their missions to protect consumers, workers, and our environment."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy