Remember last summer when the Supreme Court "fucked the planet" with the so-called "major questions doctrine" that basically gives the Court the authority to revoke any regulation it considers too big for its congressional britches?
Unsurprisingly, defenders of dangerous industries certainly remember, as they've been using it for exactly its intended purpose: providing an excuse to oppose meaningful regulations on polluting products.
For example, in response to the Biden administration's proposal to regulate tailpipe emissions from cars (something that is unquestionably not just authorized but required by the Clean Air Act), The Washington Examiner ran an op-ed by James Rogan arguing that these regulations are an "illegal move." The regulations' standards will require two-thirds of cars sold to be electric by 2032 in order to protect human health, and according to Rogan, that's akin to "legislation to ban" gas cars. Supposedly, it's not only unconstitutional because "the President cannot make law" but also because it "ignores" the Supreme Court's "major questions doctrine."
Now, until the conservative takeover of the Supreme Court, the "major questions doctrine" was the sort of thing that dangerous industries, their front groups, and their unofficial defenders used as more of a stall tactic than anything else, because no judges ever fell for it.
Unfortunately, between the 'not so sure about democracy anymore' Federalist Society having installed partisan judges up and down the bench and Clarence Thomas (who is married to an election denier and parties every year with a billionaire who "has a garden full of dictator statues"), these days the judicial branch is open to legal theories cooked up in smoky back rooms by billionaires' legal lackeys.
This conservative corruption of the legal system is probably why we're seeing 'major questions' pop up across the disinfosphere. Trump transition team alum Michael McKenna cited the doctrine a few weeks ago in a RealClear piece about the budget and EV regulations, congressional Republicans cited it a month ago in a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) that questioned gun control rules, and back in November, Trump's team used it to try and fight Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation.
As Reuters explained in March in its reporting about the doctrine’s use in the student loan forgiveness cases, "the court has repeatedly applied to Biden policies the so-called major questions doctrine," invoking "it to scuttle a pandemic-era residential eviction moratorium, a COVID-19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses and federal limits on carbon emissions from power plants."
Time and time again, the Supreme Court has let companies put lives in danger for profit, striking down regulations to protect people from pandemics, profiteers, and pollution, in between vacations with a billionaire who collects Hitler memorabilia, politicians and judges alike.
And yet calls for justice among justices are still portrayed as partisan.
