SCOTUS Expansion of Power to Review Agency Rules Will Lead to Uncertainty for Small Businesses

“The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which overturned decades of precedent established in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, will inject chaos, uncertainty and inconsistency into the application of federal regulations, which will ultimately harm small businesses because they depend on many regulations to help ensure that they can compete on an even playing field with the largest corporations. 

As we noted in an amicus brief for Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, a related case that could also undercut vital regulations that have protected small businesses for decades, permitting judges to hear challenges to rules many years after they were finalized will ultimately make it difficult to enforce critical protections essential to a wide range of industries and could leave entrepreneurs defenseless in the face of corporate aggression intended to eliminate competition from small businesses.     

In response to this effort by the Supreme Court’s right wing to undermine regulatory authority throughout the federal government, Congress must pass the Stop Corporate Capture Act, which would codify Chevron and ensure that regulatory agencies have the power to interpret ambiguous rules and regulations without permission from judges every time. Reestablishing this precedent would go a long way toward ensuring that large corporations won’t have the ability to de-fang every oversight body that pushes back against their abuses of power, a critical safeguard since these abuses often come at the expense of small firms.”