The Supreme Court on Friday sidestepped reviving a legal doctrine limiting the power lawmakers can give to federal regulators, delivering relief to environmentalists and others who had feared the case would be used to further shackle federal agencies like EPA from addressing issues like climate change.
In a 6-3 decision in Federal Communications Commission v. Consumers’ Research, the court agreed to uphold a telecommunications service fee that supports phone and internet services for rural and low-income communities.
But the court opted not to revive the nearly century-old nondelegation doctrine, with Justice Elena Kagan writing for the majority that “under our nondelegation precedents, Congress sufficiently guided and constrained the discretion that it lodged with the FCC.”
“Today’s decision rejected a revival of the nondelegation doctrine — at least for now,” said Andrew Twinamatsiko, director of the Center for Health Policy and the Law at the O’Neill Institute at Georgetown Law. “But challenges to agency authority will still be an issue to watch.”
