POMPEO: By Overturning Chevron, the Supreme Court Is Taking Power From Unelected Bureaucrats in Washington and Returning It to Refiners, Farmers, and Machinists Who Better Know Their Trades

Fifteen years ago, I was running a machine shop in Wichita, Kansas, working hard to build value and ensure we could meet payroll every week. While I battled with my competitors on sales and my suppliers on cost, I saw my business suffer due to what was happening 1200 miles away in Washington, D.C. From out-of-control spending to Obamacare, the U.S. Congress was responsible for much of it (which is why I ran in 2010 for my local congressional seat). But the Obama-era regulatory regime was also a huge problem, as it hollowed out the businesses and livelihoods upon which my community depended. Farmers were being subjected to absurd “Waters of the United States” regulations that turned nearby streams into federal waterways, making their own work far more expensive and burdensome. Energy industries, from ethanol to oil and gas, were getting crushed by Obama’s weaponized Environmental Protection Agency. What I and so many other Americans across the country were witnessing was an explosion of regulations and an expansion of Executive branch power that threatened to fundamentally change our nation. This was not simply about economics – it was fundamentally about the American way of life and whether we would continue to preserve freedom for the American people and their businesses.

Standing in the way of reining in an administrative state run amok then and now was a court ruling issued four decades ago in the case Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., otherwise known as the “Chevron Doctrine,” which was just overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. This ruling set a precedent for our courts that when ruling on a case challenging regulations, they should “defer to ‘permissible’ agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer.” In other words, courts were obligated to defer to the “experts” (and activists posing as such) in agencies like the EPA, even when they felt rules violated the rights of business owners and individual Americans. Not surprisingly, this led to a massive expansion of the power of the administrative state.

Indeed, in those four decades, Chevron has been referenced in judicial opinions more than 18,000 times in order to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute. This is fundamentally at odds with what our Constitution prescribes. The Executive branch was never meant to involve itself so aggressively in the commerce and activities of the American people, and the Supreme Court did the right thing by overturning Chevron.

Some, particularly on the far Left, have criticized this decision as giving outsized power to courts to resolve disputes between agencies and regulated industries. In reality, this decision really just puts those regulated industries back on an equal footing with government agencies. This will be better for all Americans, because despite the progressive Left’s faith in the unelected bureaucrats, it is almost always the case that refiners, farmers, and machinists know their trades far better than career bureaucrats in Washington. Allowing industry stakeholders to now meet government agencies on equal standing in court is constitutionally correct and the best way forward for our nation.

Of course, the progressive Left is not really up in arms over federal courts being empowered to decide on these issues fairly, unbound by faulty precedent – after all, they are the ones who want to expand and pack the court and, frankly, most far-Left pundits and lawmakers had probably never heard of Chevron before the Supreme Court issued its ruling. No, the real reason the far Left is up in arms over this decision is that it carries real and severe implications for the Biden Administration’s Green New Deal climate agenda. Biden’s Securities and Exchange Commission has sought to force public companies to disclose information about their “climate risks” – an effort that is now likely to be challenged and defeated. Large portions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which was really just Biden’s “Green New Deal” with a thin coat of paint, are likely to be challenged and, hopefully, defeated. Stringent rules around carbon emissions and regulations granting an unfair advantage to electric cars are also likely to be challenged. The Biden Administration has been hostile to America’s oil and gas industry since the day it took office – now these industries will have the power to push back in court, which should have always been the case.

Ronald Reagan famously said that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the Government, and I’m here to help.” For over a decade, the Obama and Biden Administrations have regulated essential sectors of our economy to death and made life worse for all Americans, with the only respite being four years of deregulation under President Trump. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Chevron will hopefully breathe new life into our economy and undo some of the damage done by Obama and Biden. We can ensure that happens by electing candidates this November who will take advantage of this decision and be committed to making America prosperous once more.