Citing an “upended legal landscape” in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to jettison Chevron, a federal appeals court has sent one of the Biden administration’s more unconventional efforts to curb climate change back to a lower court.
Judges with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — who last week appeared ready to reverse a ruling that upheld a Labor Department rule — instead ruled Thursday that the case should go back to the Texas judge who heard it.
The case has been seen as one of the first to provide some indication of how the decision to overturn Chevron will play out in court and at federal agencies. The 40-year-old doctrine had held that judges should generally defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations when it came to uncertainty in federal law.
The lower court judge — Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas — had used Chevron as one basis for his decision in September, rejecting a conservative-led challenge to a Labor Department rule that helps retirement plan sponsors account for climate risks in investing.
