Supreme Court hears Clean Air Act and sentencing Cases
SCOTUS NEWS
But Monday’s order list was just as notable for the justices’ failure to act on a variety of cases, including a death penalty case from Alabama that the justices have now considered at 24 consecutive conferences.
The justices granted three cases involving where challenges to EPA’s actions under the Clean Air Act should be filed. The law stipulates that challenges to “nationally-applicable regulations” and actions with “nationwide impact or scope” must be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit. EPA approval or issuance, or any other final EPA action that is “locally and regionally applicable” can be challenged only in the local or region court of appeals. Circuit. Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the decision to grant review, presumably because he owns stock in one of the companies challenging EPA. In a third case, EPA v. Calumet Shreveport, the justices will consider whether or not a court should litigate The justices rejected a challenge to Consumer Product Safety Commission’s structure without comment. The Consumer Product Safety Commission was established in 1972. It has five commissioners who are appointed by the president and confirmed in the Senate. They can only be removed for “cause.” They serve staggered terms of seven years and cannot have more than 3 members from the same party. That court agreed with the challengers that the “for cause” removal restriction violates Article II of the Constitution, which directs the president to ensure that the laws “be faithfully executed.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed. The court cited Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), in which the Supreme Court ruled that while a president could fire subordinates without cause, Congress could create independent, multimember regulatory agencies whose members can only be fired “for cause.” But the 5th Circuit rejected that contention, explaining that it did “not read Seila Law so broadly.” And if the challengers were correct, it added, invalidating the CPSC’s structure would mean that “the FCC, the NSF, the SBA, and dozens of other agencies would all be unconstitutionally structured.”
The court of appeals, Judge Don Willett wrote, is bound to follow the Supreme Court’s decisions, “even if that precedent strikes us as out of step with prevailing Supreme Court sentiment. The logic of Humphrey’s may have been overtaken, but the decision has not been overruled — at least not yet.”
By a vote of 9-8, the court of appeals declined to reconsider the case.
Represented by (among others) Don McGahn, who served as White House counsel to former President Donald Trump, the challengers came to the Supreme Court this summer, asking the justices to take up the case. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case after three conferences. Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote that courts should not “investigate alleged pretexts and motives” if the government takes the land for a public purpose. If the government takes the land for a public purpose, Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote, courts should not “inquire into alleged pretexts and motives.”
Judge Steven Menashi dissented, writing that “the Constitution contains no Fake Park Exception to the public use requirement of the” takings clause.
The Brinkmanns came to the Supreme Court in June, asking the justices to take up their case. The justices rejected the request after considering the case in three consecutive conferences. Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, along with Neil Gorsuch, indicated that they would have granted their petition. This left them one vote short of the required four votes to secure review. The court did not take action on another set of petitions that challenged government action, New York’s Rent-Regulation laws, under the takings provision. The court did not act in several high-profile cases it considered last week. These included a pair appeals that arose from a challenge of the congressional map adopted by Louisiana in 2024, and a challenge of the constitutionality of admissions at three of Boston’s elite public schools. Alabama filed its petition in August 2023 and the justices considered Smith’s case for the first time at their Jan. 5, 2020 conference. John Elwood says that they have discussed it at every conference ever since. It is now the “most-relisted case
of all time.” The next private conference of the justices to review petitions is on Friday, November 1.
This original article was published at Howe On The Court.
