What does SCOTUS overturning the Chevron deference mean for medical freedom cases? https://t.co/hDsSjrAuJ7
— Leslie Manookian (@LeslieManookian) July 1, 2024
"[T]his Chevron case is huge...because it means that the courts will no longer defer to the administrative agencies or to these federal agencies...they actually have to be held accountable and prove in a court of law that the rules that they are issuing are based on science..."
Writer, filmmaker, former Wall St. business executive, and President of the Health Freedom Defense Fund (@theHFDF) Leslie Manookian (@LeslieManookian) describes for Brandon Bushong of TrialSite News (@TrialsiteN) why the Supreme Court overturning the long-standing Chevron doctrine is such a big (positive!) development.
Transcription of the clip: "It's a huge, huge case. So there's been a Supreme Court case called Chevron versus Natural Resources Defense Council that's been in place since 1984, and this has been controlling law across the entire country. What it says is that if so when we sued CDC, the court, when we sued CDC over its mask mandate, and defeated it, the court is required to give deference to the agency if there's some question about, interpretation of the law. Okay? And that's not what happened in our case because we argued that the CDC had overstepped its lawful, authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. "But, basically, there was a case called Loper Bright Enterprises in front of the Supreme Court. And what happened was EPA ordered this...fishery group, Loper Bright Enterprises, to take on board an observer and pay for him or her, someone who would ensure and this is a small group, small business, ensure that they are not overfishing, and they had to pay for it. And so, basically, it was this massive overstepping of authority. So what Chevron doctrine says is that if there's an issue before the courts involving a federal agency, then the courts should defer to the expertise in terms of interpreting...the intentions of Congress, but also the expertise of the agency itself. And, therefore, its rules should be upheld. "Well, the Supreme Court right now does not seem very favorably inclined on that, and there have been several cases where the power of the agencies have been overturned in the last couple of years. There was one...when the CDC issued the eviction moratorium in...I don't know if it was 2020 or 2021, that was overturned. "And so, basically, this has huge implications for us because what's been happening for the last 40, 50, 60, 70 years, really since 1944 when the Public Health Services Act was implemented in the middle of war, which I find very bizarre. You know, we're in the middle of World War 2, and Congress passes something called the Public Health Services Act, which grants all of this power to the CDC, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the FDA. And, what's happened now as a result of this overturning of Chevron is that they're going to be held accountable. They're gonna be held to a higher threshold than they were because they've been given all this deference for the last 40 years. And many critics of the Chevron deference is, their opinion is and it and I agree with this, that what's happened as a result of Chevron is that...a fourth branch of government has developed, the administrative state. "All of these agencies are what make up the administrative state, and they are all underneath the federal, branch of government. So, you know, we've got the Executive, the President. You've got the Legislative, Congress, and you've got the judiciary, all the courts. But now you've got this fourth branch, this huge administrative state, which is unelected and unaccountable to the electorate. And they sit under the President, and this is exactly what happened. When President Biden was elected and inaugurated, in his first full day in office, he instructed the CDC to issue the mask mandate, and they dutifully did so in one week. "This was not something that Congress had told them to do or delegated power to them to do. It was purely an administrative and executive order. And so what's happened is the growth of the administrative state has really destabilized the balance of power in our system and given way, way too much power to the executive. And so this Chevron case is huge for us because it means that the courts will no longer defer to the administrative agencies or to these federal agencies whether they're health or environmental or anything else, they actually have to be held accountable and prove in a court of law that the rules that they are issuing are based on science, fact, and have a true public interest. "This is very, very big, and it has an impact for all of us in the Health Freedom arena."
