I’m delighted to report that Prof. Tom Merrill, of Columbia Law School, will be guest-blogging this week on West Virginia v. EPA, potentially one of the most important regulatory decisions by the Supreme Court in years.
In West Virginia, the Court holds that administrative agencies lack authority to render decisions of major economic and political significance unless Congress has made a clear statement authorizing them to do so. Prof. Merrill will discuss whether this was an advisory opinion; whether it was necessary for the Court to create a major questions doctrine given statutory limits on EPA’s authority; how the major questions doctrine compares to the venerable Chevron doctrine; whether the major questions doctrine will prove to be workable; and whether a clear statement rule is needed, given that reviewing courts could simply determine, as a matter of independent judgment, whether Congress has delegated authority to the agency to decide the question at issue.
