As the U.S. Supreme Court gears up for its 2023-2024 term, Politico spoke to Principal John Cruden (Washington, DC) on the cases it will hear in their September 26 article, “Supreme Court takes on ‘Voldemort’ of administrative law.” John is a former Assistant Attorney General of the U.S. Department of Justice Environment and Natural Resources Division and a frequent lecturer on the U.S. Supreme Court.

One of the most significant cases on the Court’s docket for the next term is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which challenges a long-standing key administrative law doctrine—the Chevron doctrine, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit used it to affirm an NOAA Fisheries regulation. John advised, “Recently, Chevron in the Supreme Court has been like the Dark Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter books — not to be mentioned by name.”

The Chevron doctrine requires federal courts to defer to administrative agencies’ interpretations of their governing statutes in cases where the text of the ruling statutes is ambiguous. As one of the most-cited Supreme Court cases, Chevron has been instrumental in environmental law for the past 40 years, particularly in respect to statutes like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. In the article, Politico goes on to discuss other environmental law Supreme Court cases of past terms like West Virginia v. EPA and Sackett v. EPA, and other pending cases for the 2023-2024 term.

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