In Loper Bright, the Supreme Court repudiated Chevron’s across-the-board presumption that statutory ambiguities should be treated as implied delegations of discretion to agencies. But Loper Bright did not repudiate the possibility that a court might properly find implied delegation in some cases. Although Loper Bright declared that “statutes, no matter how impenetrable, do—in fact, must—have […]
The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal to require that compounding pharmacies disclose prominently that their products have never been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is long overdue; this is a reasonable requirement that advances consumer protection. Unfortunately, the administration couples this sensible proposal to increase transparency with a broader effort […]
New attention is being paid to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan after the New York Times published memos revealing the Supreme Court’s hurried deliberations before blocking its implementation. The Clean Power Plan, a regulation intended to cut power plants’ climate-changing carbon pollution, never went into effect. Yet it has the distinction of coming […]
The Trump administration has generally favored reducing environmental regulations. Yet on April 2, 2026, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) made coordinated announcements signaling that microplastics—tiny plastic particles found in everything from tap water to human blood—would receive new federal attention. EPA moved to designate microplastics a […]
On December 18th, 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a multi-pronged, administrative attack on gender affirming care (GAC) for pediatric patients. The Department’s goal is straightforward: to use its vast rulemaking authorities to ban the practice nationwide. The Supreme Court holding in U.S. v. Skrmetti and the recent tenor of […]
On March 31, 2026, the “God Squad” convened for the first time in more than 30 years. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) prohibits federal actions that could jeopardize the continued existence of an endangered or threatened species, but this group—the Endangered Species Committee—has the power to exempt activities from that requirement. In the span of […]
This post is one half of a two-part series. Click here to view the post on Loper Bright and the Future of the Republican Coalition. The Supreme Court’s decision to eliminate Chevron deference in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo was widely seen as a setback for pro-regulatory politics. As Justice Elena Kagan argued in dissent, […]
The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral argument in Trump v. Barbara, a case addressing whether the President can end birthright citizenship by executive action. This issue has fostered considerable debate in recent years. While the majority of legal scholars believe birthright citizenship is available to all, a vocal minority of conservative legal scholars believe […]
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, a NYU Law Professor wrote in The Atlantic, “Jarkesy continues the Court’s attack on the federal government’s capacity to do many of its most basic jobs.” This captured the sentiment among many who felt that this decision, which affirmed […]
We’re now over a month into the second shutdown of the second Trump administration. What have we learned? Mainly that the problem of “separation of parties, not powers” is growing worse and, in consequence, Congress’s power of the purse may be unravelling. Shutdowns happen because of time-limited appropriations. By providing funds to most agencies for […]
On February 20, the Trump administration announced the imposition of tariffs pursuant to Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a section designed to counteract balance-of-payments crises. A number of helpful articles have since appeared to explain that a trade deficit is not the same thing as a balance-of-payments deficit, let alone the sort of fundamental international payments […]
For the first time in American history, the Supreme Court is poised to decide what it means for the president to remove a principal officer “for cause.” The case—which arises from the attempted removal of Lisa Cook, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System—has major implications for central bank independence […]
Lost in the extensive coverage of the Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026 opinion invalidating most of President Trump’s tariffs was the fact that there were two related cases before it[1] and that it had entirely dismissed one of them. The lead case, in fact. That coverage gap is understandable. The only mention the Court makes […]
On February 20th, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a large portion of President Trump’s vast tariff regime, holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. In response, the Trump administration announced its determination to find alternate routes for its America First trade policy. While the […]
Within two months of his arrival in the White House, Donald Trump fired Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter from the Federal Trade Commission because, in his words, “her position on the agency is incompatible with this Administration’s policies.” Yet the FTC statute permits presidents to fire Commissioners only on a showing of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or […]