The upcoming Supreme Court term is poised to feature a new round of attacks on federal agency powers.
Among those fights is a battle launched by a right-leaning nonprofit that says it should be easier for the president to fire top brass at the Consumer Product Safety Commission. The dispute, should the justices choose to hear it, could similarly affect other independent agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
The petition from Consumers’ Research has drawn wide-ranging support from organizations such as the Cato Institute, Americans for Prosperity Foundation and U.S. Chamber of Commerce, as well as Republican Louisiana Attorney General Elizabeth Murrill and nearly a dozen Republican legislators.
If the Supreme Court grants the petition and sides with Consumers’ Research, the justices would be “invalidating the entire structure of multimember agencies — at least when they wield the same kind of powers that the CPSC does,” said Joel Eisen, a law professor at the University of Richmond.
