In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in cases challenging how agencies enforce their regulations and implementing statutes, leaders of the House Financial Services Committee (FSC) offered their perspectives on what this means for agencies going forward.
“[The] Supreme Court decision [overturning the deference precedent set forth in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council] is a critical rebuke of the administrative state’s outsized influence over the lawmaking process,” Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), FSC chairman, said in a release. “For too long, unelected bureaucrats have abused their power to circumvent Congressional intent. The decisions handed down by the court this week, from the overturning of Chevron to SEC v. Jarkesy, offer a welcome check to this administration’s overzealous regulators and their weaponization of the federal bureaucracy.
“Committee Republicans will continue to hold President [Joe] Biden’s financial regulators accountable and reject their efforts to inject partisan political objectives when implementing laws that govern our financial system.”
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Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), ranking member of the FSC, said the Supreme Court has significantly weakened the federal government’s ability to protect consumers and investors by overturning Chevron and determining the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) internal adjudicative proceedings as unconstitutional when seeking civil penalties. She specifically called out the SEC v. Jarkesy ruling, claiming it restricts the SEC and other agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, federal banking regulators, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration from imposing penalties against bad actors in an expedient manner.
“Even more concerning, the Supreme Court ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo undermined the authority of our government agencies to issue rules that protect our country as our economy and world change,” Waters said. “Critical actions taken by federal agencies to strengthen financial regulation, combat the growing climate crisis, and enforce civil rights laws, including rooting out housing discrimination and redlining, can now be easily challenged by industry and overturned and blocked by the courts….
“With these rulings, the Supreme Court has not only succeeded in upending half a century of important legal precedent, known as the Chevron doctrine, but has also made it much easier for big, wealthy corporations to benefit at the expense of ordinary people and escape civil penalties. Rest assured, Democrats will continue to use every tool available to thwart the effects of these harmful, devastating decisions and craft legislation to protect our communities from this type of extremism.”