To be fair, Congress has the same problem. I believe that was in large part the impetus for giving the agencies discretion. They have a better chance of having the depth of expertise to craft effective regulations.

1. Courts have expert witnesses and a whole system around how they are called, challenged and questioned. Judges are trained to learn what they need to know from witnesses.

2. Good court systems do have expert judges they can draw on.

I recently took part in the Craig Wright case in the UK as a witness. Wright forged enormous quantities of evidence and proving the forgeries often required deep technical knowledge about file metadata, how computers worked etc. Fortunately the judge was deeply technical himself, being often a judge on complex patent cases, and had no difficulty with any of the complexities.

I don't understand where this belief is coming from. The judgement explicitly states that writing unambiguous laws isn't possible. There will still be ambiguous laws, and those ambiguities will still be resolved. The only matter being decided on is who gets to resolve ambiguities - is it the agencies or is it the courts.

Let's put this another way. Did Congress have to write unambiguous laws or have them be unenforceable before 1984? Clearly not. The Constitution itself is ambiguous on many points. Do other countries, which lack any equivalent of Chevron deference, have to write unambiguous laws or have them be unenforceable? Again, clearly not.

I think we are agreeing here. I think the distinction is that I'm claiming the courts would need (yet don't have) the expertise to clear up ambiguities in such domains. Where do I get this claim? From the justices themselves.[1] There is evidence they are overly confident in their understanding when "doing their own research" on a domain outside their expertise.[2]

So given that context, it's probably a bad idea to have justices decide on ambiguities. But if that power resides in them now, it means the only way to have effective laws is to avoid ambiguities in the first place. That's why I stated that is now on Congress. However, the court is also acknowledging that isn't possible. That's why I originally said it reads like they created a deliberate stalemate. From the court we have the following:

1) Congress cannot be expected to create unambiguous laws.

2) It is the court's job to resolve ambiguities.

3) The court lacks domain expertise.

I'm claiming those set up a natural conflict because expertise is necessary to effectively resolve ambiguity.

The most generous interpretation is that the justices don't need to know the details of the domain expertise, but rather just need to know how it interfaces with people and the law.[3] I'm pretty skeptical of that leading to good outcomes in complex, nuanced situations. I don't think we can pretend law is abstractly disconnected from the complex systems it regulates. As society progresses, most things get more complex so I expect the problem to get worse, not better.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-google-tech-so...

[2] https://www.propublica.org/article/supreme-court-errors-are-...

[3] https://www.vox.com/2014/4/23/5644154/the-supreme-courts-tec...

There's certainly no evidence of an attempt to create a deliberate stalemate here, as "laws that judges cannot interpret even with help" isn't something the Supreme Court is going to consider a legitimate problem to begin with so why would they consider it? But it's fascinating the degree to which some people on this thread are sure this is all a cunning secret plan by the justices to advance a political ideology. Projection, much?

> There is evidence they are overly confident in their understanding when "doing their own research" on a domain outside their expertise.[2]

Great. So are regulators, politicians and especially journalists. The idea that agencies never rely on bogus claims or statistics is a deeply romantic view.

Really, I don't have any sympathy for the US regulatory agencies on this issue. Too many of them have a history of abusing Chevron deference. If the deference standard had any advantage at all it'd be that you could get binding rulings from regulators ahead of time, without needing to actually end up in court first. But regulators always refuse to do that, because they aren't obliged to and it would reduce their options. Instead what they do is make vague rules, tell citizens (e.g. entrepreneurs) who ask for clarification to get lost, wait years for some of those people to make successful businesses and then decide that what they were doing had been illegal all along under some strange interpretation of the relevant rule. It's a form of retroactive lawmaking, which is forbidden by basically any constitution because the whole point of law is that people are meant to be able to follow it.

This sort of abusive behavior is so common it's clearly deliberate. Instead of helping society, the agencies end up working against it in order to maximize their own power.

Having the people who interpret laws be fully separated from those who write the laws aligns incentives properly: there's no longer any benefit to passing maximally vague or contradictory rules in the hope of being able to do whatever you want later. Laws that are as specific and clear as possible is exactly what a society needs to succeed, because when the rules are clear people are free to innovate and do business without fear.

Yes. The important distinction that I drew was that the power is now vested in a very small group of nine people. IMO that measures it much easier for biases to continue unabated. At least in large numbers, there are more likely to be more rational viewpoints to counter our innate biases.

Maybe, but there is absolutely no mechanism to ensure that rational viewpoints will prevail in a group of large numbers, and quite a large danger of social pressure causing less rational viewpoints to prevail instead.

If the court makes an unreasonable interpretation, the only mechanism to rectify it is for Congress to be explicit. This has multiple problems: first, getting anything through Congress is becoming increasingly difficult. Secondly, the Court already admitted that laws will always have ambiguities because Congress doesn't always have the expertise to be that explicit. From that standpoint, the Court has claimed a power while acknowledging there is very little in terms of a check on that power.

Yes, but this is a system where everyone involved is trying to (help their team) win rather than trying to produce generally efficacious policy.

Despite its reputation for not passing any laws, the last session of Congress still passed a fair number of laws: https://legiscan.com/US/legislation/2021?status=passed

(The current one seems to be a fair bit behind, but it is also operating on razor thin vote margins and the session is not over yet).

I think we can all agree that the best solution is unambiguous laws, but that’s an impossibility by the courts own admission. Chevron already had a mechanism to prevent agency overreach by giving the court discretion to determine the reasonableness of an agency interpretation. This now just puts the onus on the court to do it all, and they admit they don’t have domain expertise. I fail to see how that is a better solution.

I don’t want the domain experts to have an easy time of it. The law is not their convenience, it is for the peace and prosperity of the Republic, and given that Agency interpretations can change on a dime (up until recently) with almost minimal justification from a new administration, I don’t want to defer to staff who are charged with interpreting laws in a way more favorably for their new bosses, even if it goes against how they did business under their old ones to have an easier time making their case in court. The law should be more concrete than some mere electoral promises and wishful policy-thinking.

Ideally. In practice ambiguities in statutes governing agency mandates are always interpreted by agencies in whatever way would maximize their own options and power. That's the written justification for the APA in the first place: reeling in excessive "zeal" amongst administrators.

The courts don't get powers from the law directly (except meta-powers like the one this case is about), so there's no direct benefit to judges from interpreting law in a maximally agency-advantageous way. That's why countries (not just the US) have courts resolve ambiguous law. It's a core part of their job.

An abuse of a form doesn't invalidate that form's validity.

I would be logically incoherent to assert that all hamburgers are crap on the basis of having worked at McDonalds for years.

Nobody has a career as an expert witness for long if they go against a client's wishes. There is no such thing as an impartial expert witness in the current system. They're all hired by one side or the other. They're basically subject-matter expert lawyers.

> There is no such thing as an impartial expert witness in the current system

You're saying a form is bad because it doesn't line up with how it ought to be (you said "impartial"). But in saying so, you imply there is an ought. That is the real form (what it ought to be): an impartial expert witness.

When a form only presently exists in an abuse thereof, that doesn't necessarily invalidate the form as a worthy pursuit.

History can tell us whether such a form is worth pursuing. Expert witnesses in the US have been more or less impartial in the past. Communism has never been achieved, and its pursuit has never led to well-being of the people. Both are "ideal forms" in a philosophical sense, but history bears out which is worth pursuing and practically achievable.

So my take is that what's needed is reform of expert testimony through congressional law, including independent review of DAs, to ensure they prosecute expert witnesses who failed a legal impartiality test.

I'm arguing for better enforcement via law, to ensure witnesses are either impartial or prosecuted for impartiality.

If partial witnesses aren't being prosecuted, then launch an inquiry and do a causal chain analysis. It's bound to turn up a root problem that is solvable.

The left tend to argue that impartial people exist, and that they are numerous/easy to find.

The right tend to argue that there's no such thing as an impartial person, that you can get people who start out partial and do their best to be fair (e.g. judges) but it takes constantly training, reinforcements and incentives to do that and there's always the danger of slipping back. You definitely can't assume it.

The adversarial court system is based on the right-leaning belief: although expert witnesses are told to be impartial, the system doesn't assume this is enough and so witnesses are called by one side and cross-examined by the other. The lawyer's job is to sniff out any signs of bias or incompetence.

No -- subject matter expertise is not relevant per se, as what is being evaluated in these cases is not whether the policy advanced by a given agency is sound on its technical merits or factual basis, but whether it is within the bounds of the authority granted to that agency by the applicable statutes.

The courts aren't concerned with "crafting effective regulations", they are concerned with ensuring that the people who are tasked with doing so are operating consistently with prevailing statute law and the constitution.

And, considering that the judiciary is staffed with the world's foremost experts in statutory interpretation and constitutional law, this arrangement makes sure that all of the disparate facets of the process are being undertaken by the most qualified people available.

It's not appropriate to make officials who are hired on the basis of their knowledge of medicine, RF transmission, economics, etc. to bear the entire burden of determining the complex legalities of their authority. They have to step far outside their field of expertise and engage in textual analysis of statutory law or delve deep into constitutional theory to determine whether their rule-making process is indeed legally permissible. It's better to let the courts do their job here and tell them when they are out of line, so they can focus on doing their own jobs properly.

It sounds like we disagree on who is better equipped to make the kinds of interpretations necessary for effective policy. Like I said in another post, I don’t think we can pretend law can be abstracted and cleaved from the systems it regulates. The court admits they don’t have expertise in those systems. That makes me feel they are ill-equipped for the types of interpretations.

I think a lot of the reason this thread has blown up is that the Chevron doctrine was really very strange and not at all how you'd expect the US legal system to have been working. It doesn't line up with any standard teaching of civics, for instance. The Supreme Court clearly felt the same way and has now instructed courts to go back to doing what everyone thought they were doing already.

To be clear, I think there is a distinction between declaring if a law is constitutional and resolving ambiguities for non-constitutional, domain specific issues. I think the court is eminently qualified in one area, but much less so (by their own admission) in the other. I think those are two different aspects that often get conflated.

I think the court should reserve power for constitutionality (their domain expertise) and leave resolving the ambiguity outside that to the regulatory experts of those respective domains.

No, you are definitely misunderstanding. Chevron delegated a core duty of the judiciary to executive branch officials with no expertise in that field. The "reasonableness" standard you was a limited and constrained version of reasonableness standards devised and applied by courts in normal statutory interpretation, and deprived the courts of the power to fully exercise their duty.

> Now the court gets both aspects.

No, there is only one aspect here.

> Our difference is that I think that is a less good outcome because I believe domain expertise is necessary to effectively clear up ambiguity and the court admits they do not have that kind of domain expertise.

The domain expertise of the regulators in the field of regulation is irrelevant here, because the cases that go before the court are not about what measures are likely to be effective in fulfilling the agency's mandate, it's about what measures are legally permissible.

> I think the court should reserve power for constitutionality (their domain expertise) and leave resolving the ambiguity outside that to the regulatory experts of those respective domains.

The only domain at question here is the domain of interpreting the law, and the relevant experts in that are the judiciary themselves. You are conflating together completely distinct matters.

If you look to Chevron for a concrete example, the issue was about the ambiguity of the scope of a “source” of emissions. That is not a law question because the law already deemed that sources can be regulated. It’s really a question of non-law domain expertise in terms of the definition of an emission source.

No, I'm not claiming that. I'm not sure what that has to do with this discussion at all, though, because non-law domain experience has nothing to do with domain experience in interpreting laws.

> If you look to Chevron for a concrete example, the issue was about the ambiguity of the scope of a “source” of emissions. That is not a law question because the law already deemed that sources can be regulated.

Huh? If the law says "sources can be regulated", then the question of what the statute means by "source" is 100% a legal question of statutory interpretation!

> It’s really a question of non-law domain expertise in terms of the definition of an emission source.

No, it absolutely is not! Congress -- not the domain experts in the regulatory agency -- used specific language to establish and circumscribe the scope of the questions that agency's authority would extend to. It is 100% the role of the courts to analyse the statutory text written by Congress and determine whether the agency is or is not operating within the authority that Congress established.

I would argue that is the central claim. Something can be law and ambiguous. The role of the court previously was to ensure the first part: that the law is Constitutional. Outside of Maybury I don't think anyone is disputing that. The difference is that this now says the arbiter of ambiguity is now the court.

Not everything related to interpretation should be up to the court. The court's primary role is in determining constitutionality; that is a much more narrow scope than what you're presuming. In many (most) court rulings, they are very deliberate in keeping the scope as narrow as possible. This ruling is one of the exceptions, not the rule. But you don't have to take it from me. Justice Kagan states:

"Some interpretive issues arising in the regulatory context involve scientific or technical subject matter. Agencies have expertise in those areas; courts do not. Some demand a detailed understanding of complex and interdependent regulatory programs. Agencies know those programs inside-out; again, courts do not...In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law. As if it did not have enough on its plate, the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar."

>Congress -- not the domain experts in the regulatory agency -- used specific language to establish and circumscribe the scope of the questions that agency's authority would extend to.

I don't think this is correct. The court has acknowledged that Congress cannot make perfectly unambigious laws. The question is about who gets to clear up those ambiguities. Again, the role of the court is best suited to what they have expertise in: determining constitutionality. Defining what an "emission source" (or any other domain expertise question) is outside that scope.

I would argue that becoming an "administrative czar" oversteps the bounds of a judiciary responsible for determining constitutionality to one that blurs the lines with the executive branch. In Kagan's words, it becomes an act of "judicial hubris."

No. The role of the court is, and always has been, to determine what the law is -- constitutional law, statute law, common law, all of it. Forget Maybury and think Marbury. Chevron was an unjustifiable deviation from what has been the unambiguous responsibility of the courts for the entirety of their history.

> Not everything related to interpretation should be up to the court. The court's primary role is in determining constitutionality;

No, as above, the courts role is determining the meaning of the law. The constitution happens to be the supreme source of law, but it is and always has been the courts' job to interpret law from all subordinate sources as well.

> I don't think this is correct. The court has acknowledged that Congress cannot make perfectly unambigious laws. The question is about who gets to clear up those ambiguities.

I'm not sure what you are saying you don't think is correct. No one claimed that Congress makes perfectly unambiguous laws -- that is impossible. Rather, Congress passes statutes using specific verbiage, and the responsibility for -- and expertise in -- interpreting that verbiage and clearing up ambiguities is and always has been the domain of the courts, and absolutely not the unaccountable province of people with no expertise in statutory interpretation who have an inherent interest in interpreting their own authority to be as expansive as possible.

I fully acknowledge the difference in opinion here. One side thinks the court has the duty to clear up ambiguity. The other thinks that better resides in the agencies. It’s literally the difference between the ruling and dissenting opinions of the court decision.

My claim is that in a modern society, clearing up that ambiguity requires domain expertise. Just hand waving it away and saying “this is the way it’s always been” (even though that’s not true since that wasn’t the case for the last 40 years) doesn’t actually address that point. So in your opinion, do the complexities of modern society not matter? If not, you’re implying we can bring back a Justice from the 1790s and they can effectively rule on issues related to climate change, the internet, genetics, pharmaceuticals etc. After all, they don’t need any domain knowledge. I disagree; I’ve steelmanned your argument elsewhere in this thread and still find it lacking. The point isn’t “to do things like they were always done before” but the “create a more perfect Union.” I think allowing domain experts to clarify complex issues, within the confines set by the court, is a better system and you haven’t done anything to explain why it isn’t. It comes across as much more about ideology than effective governance.

There seem to be a lot of posts in this thread that are misinterpreting what the judgement means. Here's what I understood from reading it:

• This case does not affect Congress' ability to delegate defined lawmaking powers to the executive. Congress can continue to delegate whatever they want.

• It will therefore not have any impact on the speed with which the US government can pass laws.

• It does not award the courts any new powers.

• What it does is go back to the pre-1984 system in which the meaning of ambiguous rules were decided by the courts.

• It does so on the basis of a specific law called the APA, in which Congress spelled out that the courts should defer to agencies on matters of fact, but does not say courts should defer to agencies on how to interpret ambiguous law. Also that law was passed specifically to limit the powers of the executive. So, their ruling seems founded in the will of Congress.

Because ambiguous rules would have to be decided on anyway, and they were already being decided in the context of a court case, this won't affect the number of cases being decided.

I think the only way to attack this ruling would be to show that there was some law that superceded or replaced the APA, or that the relevant section of the APA itself was unconstitutional. But why would it be? As the court points out, the fact that ambiguous law is interpreted by the courts is a very old and unremarkable arrangement. The Chevron decision was the radical deviation from normal practice, reversing it just puts things back to how most people already think it works.

As this requires judges to consider a wider range of options it inherently means these cases will take longer thus increasing caseload. Further, it also means bringing these cases before the court will get more expensive as individual cases take longer.

Courts are at least expected to make progress on cases as they are brought, to be roughly consistent with past case law, and they aren't allowed to just refuse to make a decision for a decade and return to it when it's suddenly in the newspapers.

None of what you mention really applies to specific court cases.

A judge can either defer to the agency involved, or spend a while digging into the underlying intent etc. The second may be “Better” or “Worse”, but if nothing else the first is faster.

Well, you're in luck with this court!

> The Roberts Court just decided to increase Congress' workload 100000x

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40823343

meta: this has been one of the most interesting and educational threads in recent times. Three cheers for HN.

Now leaving the specific judgement aside for a second, IMHO - not worth much as an outsider - Congress certainly should write more precise laws and maybe hire more aides to help them do that. All governments could do better on that front. Clear law is worth its weight in gold for creating a stable and prosperous society because when people know what they can and cannot do it's less risk to create new companies, less risk to create new products, and less time is spent in courtrooms arguing disputes caused by ambiguity. A lot of people commenting on this thread seem to fear a general breakdown if lawmakers are required to do a better job of writing law, but my personal experience of regulation (limited but not zero) has been that laws that have gone via a parliament or Congress are already higher quality than administratively issued regulations. The idea that the former are written by incompetents and the latter by experts is an intuitive one, but doesn't seem to be borne out in practice.

Also, as a general aside, I think Americans should appreciate Congress more than they do. It's popular to take a dump on them but if you compare to other governments around the world US law is fairly high quality. A big part of the success of the US economy and tech industry is related to what Congress does and doesn't do. For example the DMCA was unpopular when it passed but it laid the foundation for the dominance of Silicon Valley today. Apparently most Americans like their own Congressman/woman even whilst feeling the institution itself does a bad job, but this may just reflect the fact that America is very large and diverse, so inevitably a talking shop where people from different parts spend all day disagreeing with each other will seem dysfunctional.

I think the implication by the OP was that they would now have to be decide by the court instead of by the executive branch agencies. Previously, those agency decisions could be brought to the court, but they didn't have to for an interpretation. That seems like a subtle but important nuance.

https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artIII-S2-C2-...