Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: The Supreme Court just made one of the biggest decisions of our lifetime, and with it, it's time for us to redeclare our independence from the tyranny of big government.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to the Duster Mud podcast, episode 70.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: My name is Shelley, and my name is Rich.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: For nearly 25 years, Rich served in the United States Air Force, defending this amazing nation that we have that we call the United States of America. About 248 years ago, a group of people got together and decided to fight against tyranny and created these United States. Happy 4 July, by the way.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Happy fourth.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: So let's talk about some freedom today.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Okay. In January, we brought a story to you because we felt like it was a really important story, and it was regarding a doctrine called the Chevron doctrine, also referred to as Chevron deference. And there was a case that was before the Supreme Court that we covered in with you in January, and that case had really big implications, and we wanted to revisit that story and update you because the supreme court recently made their decision on that case.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: The thing that we really want to get at is, how does this affect the average person? How does this affect us as small farmers? How does it affect you as a regular, perhaps a regular citizen of the United States? Because while we understand the implications it might have on large corporations and such, how's it really going to affect us?
[00:01:36] Speaker A: So today we're going to cover what is the Chevron doctrine or Chevron deference? When did it come about? What was the case in January and why was it important? And then the Supreme Court's decision, and then what Shelley just mentioned, what does that mean to the rest of us? So in 19, 84, 40 years ago, the Supreme Court decided in a case that was Chevron versus the Environmental Protection Agency, that the government agencies were the experts and they should be the ones to interpret the laws that Congress passes. And then with that, we had the Chevron deference or Chevron doctrine.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: It seems that whenever the Supreme Court made that decision in 1984, they inadvertently handed over an enormous amount of power to these agencies. I don't know that that was necessarily their goal. I think they were trying to make it to where the right decision was made.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yeah, they were trying to say, let the experts be experts. And what it turned out to be was that the agencies were then able to take very vague laws like, we want clean air.
That's all that Congress would say, right? Like the Clean Air act. And then the Environmental Protection Agency then takes that clean Air act and they start making rules and regulations, and then with those rules and regulations, they would then enforce them, and the Environmental Protection Agency would come to you and enforce those rules and regulations. And if you then took that to court to say, hey, this is infringing upon my rights. What Chevron deference did then was it tied the judges hands, even in a court of law, to where the judges had to defer Chevron deference, they had to defer to the agencies and unless, as long as it was reasonable, whatever that means. Yeah. So what you ended up with then Washington, the executive branch of government, so the president can appoint these agency chiefs. So the executive branch, then through the agencies, the agencies were making the rules and regulations, which is the job of Congress, of the legislative branch, and then they were enforcing those rules and making decisions on them, which is the job.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Of the judicial branch, and assigning fines and penalties and all sorts of manner of things that they were doing. And whenever our founding fathers set up this system, it was supposed to be a balance of power between the three branches. And whenever you add unelected human beings that are hired or trained to be experts in a particular subject matter, the people have had no say in this.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:04:43] Speaker B: The people have had a say in who's elected president. The people have had a say in who's elected Congress, and by default, they've had a say in who the Supreme Court is because the president does all of that. But that being said, whenever you start adding to the mix a person that's been employed by a specific administration, things get a little weird.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: So in January of this year, a group of fishermen decided that, okay, you have overstepped your bounds. The fisheries department. I'll keep this real simple. The fisheries department made some rules and said, we're going to enforce these rules. And in order to do that, we have to put a person on the boat with you. And Congress didn't fund us to pay for that person to be on the boat with you. So we're going to charge you to have that person on the boat with you to enforce the rules. And it was costing these guys like up to $700 a day per person. Per boat.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Right.
Bizarre.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: And so just bizarre, they said, no.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: We believe that this, this is an overreach and this is only due to this chevron doctrine from 84 is the only reason they're able to do this.
[00:06:00] Speaker B: Well, because they knew that they were going to get away with doing whatever. At this point. They say they want to do. The agencies, the agencies get away with doing whatever it is that they want to because they have all of the power.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Right. And so these, this couple, couple of companies said, no, we don't agree with this, and took it to the Supreme Court. And that's, that was what we talked to you about in January. Feel free to go back and check out that episode if you're interested. We go into quite a bit more detail.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: But we said then it's looking like the Supreme Court may overturn this.
Stand by. Towards the end of June, beginning of July, we expect a decision. And lo and behold, end of June, we got a decision and the Supreme Court decided to overturn Chevron doctrine.
[00:06:52] Speaker B: So they've overturned Chevron doctrine. Now what does that mean? What does that do for the agencies and what does that do for the balance of power?
[00:07:03] Speaker A: What they said in their opinion when the Supreme Court wrote this was that the court should no longer defer to the agency's interpretation of ambiguous statutes without clear congressional authorization.
They emphasized that Chevron deference had allowed agencies to assume legislative and judicial powers, undermining the separation of powers central to the constitution.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yay.
[00:07:31] Speaker A: Yeah. It's exactly what we were saying in January was the issue with this doctrine, and that's what they decided in their ruling. So what this does for us. What does this do?
Okay, now what the first thing is, I believe that we could start seeing some limits on the big government.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I would, I would.
It should tamp down some of the things, for sure.
[00:08:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:06] Speaker B: You know, it should also bring Congress, put them a little bit on notice since they stop writing such ambiguous laws. Right?
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Yes.
Well, yes. Like that is. That's one of the things that should be a fallout from this, is that as they're writing laws, they need to take care and be more particular about all of the little details that they were able to just leave out because it just, whatever vague law they passed went to an agency and then the agency took care of all of the details. At this point, the agency's powers are limited.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Right.
They're limited. Congress is going to write the law. And if you get into the nuts and bolts of it, you've been up there when some of this was going on or when they do these things.
Would ever there be a case when a congressman would maybe confer with perhaps an agency and say, hey, you guys have the experts. Let's write this law together so that this thing makes sense? I mean, do they ever work together or talk amongst themselves?
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: So they can't. They could get to there.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: I mean, in the, in the utopian view of the world, that the. The congressman would confer with the experts. The experts would all agree. The congress would then write a law based on the experts opinion for what is best for the people of the nation.
[00:09:42] Speaker B: Got it. But that's not you.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: In reality, there's a lot of money that is at stake and a lot of lobbyists that parry favor. And so it doesn't always happen exactly like that.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Okay. It just seems to me like the laws.
Here's another thing.
There's been a lot of verbal pushback against what experts are, who's deciding how much of this or how much of that should be allowed in the world.
And the experts are the ones to be able to, that can really make that determination. And a judge should never be allowed to determine how much particles are in your water or particulates are in the air or whatever, because they're not experts on that subject. How about we write laws so that the judges who are very trained into in deciphering laws and making judgments based on the way the law is written, and they can probably make that determination if the law is written properly.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Right? I would think that's the idea, yeah. Yeah.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: And with this overturn, that's really what the Supreme Court is saying, is it's time for the legislative branch of the government to legislate.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: The executive branch, to include the agencies, need to go do their job. The legislative branch that writes the laws need to do their job, and then allow the judicial branch then to interpret those laws.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: Good. Yes.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: That's the idea. That's what overturning this means.
And we would term that restoring balance. Right. We're restoring the balance of powers from all leaning very, very heavily to the executive branch. Now, we're balancing that because of the.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: Appointments that they get to make within those agencies.
[00:11:44] Speaker A: That's right. Right. So whoever is elected as the executor of the nation, then they appoint the agency chiefs to all of the different.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: A lot of people probably don't know how that works. I would say that that is an unknown factor to most people, that the president is the one to appoint more than just the head of the FBI and the surgeon general and a few of those big Whigs, but every agency, even the ones that are kind of more obscure.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: So my last boss, I worked for, the political appointee, the secretary of the air force's acquisition chief. He's a political appointee.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Political appointee.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: He is appointed by politicians, appointed by the president.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: President Obama appoints Joe Schmo.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:40] Speaker B: And Joe Schmoe carries over into president.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: The way that it works. Trump. No, there's not like a rule, but the way that it works. Every time there's an election, the appointees hand in their resignation, and then the next elected official either says, I decline your resignation, I would like you to stay in your job, or I accept your resignation and I appoint someone else into that job.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: So it's pretty much a revolving door. At least every four years, potentially, yeah. Within that sector, it could be. So the raw, the laws, the rules and the policies. Mainly the policies.
These different agencies are often whichever side of the aisle the executive branch happens.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:35] Speaker B: Got it. So it's not just, well, the Environmental Protection Agency is looking after the environment. No, they are doing a political.
They get, let's just pick on the EPA. Any three letter agency is probably going to do the bidding of the executive branch that they've been hired by.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: You would hope.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Not that it could be that way.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: But that is your boss.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: That is your boss.
[00:14:06] Speaker A: You are serving at the pleasure of the president.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: Okay. That's kind of what I thought.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Right.
So we reduce big government potentially by getting rid of this.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:20] Speaker B: We at least put a little bit of rains on them.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: The other, the other thing that we could see is, like, for small businesses and stuff, you might start seeing a little bit less of the just ambiguous regulation changes. The, you know, I, you know, the level of uncertainty. Yeah. You show up on Monday and the rules have just changed because somebody decided that the rules just change or the.
[00:14:46] Speaker B: Rule says is stated in one way, but they interpret it another way in their particular area. And you.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Right. You get a new somebody into a new job, they interpret it differently. And now the rule just changed and the thing that you've been doing is now no longer allowed. And, you know, as soon as you take that to court with the Chevron doctrine, the judge would say, I don't know, I have to defer to the.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: So how many more court cases are there going to be? Because now people think they might, they might think that they have a fighting chance against these agencies that are being.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: So overreaching sometimes where you're going with this. I see. That's how this actually plays out.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Like, I don't, I don't anticipate that the agencies are going to say, oh, good, I don't have to be, you know, overbearing anymore. Right. I can just go back to being concerned about the environment. Like, I don't, I don't see that happening. I don't see the agencies changing at all I see them continuing to do exactly what they're doing. But the difference is now when you go to court, you actually have a chance. Right before when you went to court, you did not have a chance. By the doctrine, by Chevron doctrine, you didn't have a chance to win. The judge just deferred to them. Chevron deference. Now you have at least a chance. And if the agencies continuously get defeated in the, in the legal battles, then maybe something will change. But I don't, I think it'll be.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: It'Ll probably be kind of slow.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: Well, there's, there are, this has happened like a week ago and there are already cases on the docket.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Oh, cool.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: People have got the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives or whatever. They are, the ATF, they're already bringing cases against ATF with, because some of.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Their rules and regulations are, they just made up on their own.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Some of their most recent ones. The Supreme Court's going to hear about it in the fall. There are, big corporations have already brought cases against the Environmental Protection Agency and some of their rules and regulations that they've just, you know, invented to, to deal with clean air, you know.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: Right.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: And then Department of Labor has already had cases brought against it as well for some of the crazy stuff that's going on right now with, you know, what is an employee and what is a contractor?
There's some big changes that they just plopped down that aren't founded in law. It's the, you know, what, is it fair.
[00:17:36] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Fair Labor Standards act.
They just interpreted it recently. They reinterpreted it and said, all of you people who were contractors now aren't contractors anymore. And there's new rules as to what it takes to be a contractor.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, they did that some time ago. I remember.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: Yeah. But some time ago, like this year, like I'm saying recent, like this wasn't like ten years ago.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: Right, right.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: This was, this happened like this year. And I, it has had an impact, a fairly significant impact on people's lives that are independent contractors now that aren't considered independent contractors or small businesses that hire independent contractors are now having those independent contractors be considered employees.
[00:18:27] Speaker B: Oh, gosh. And then the tax burden.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: And then as soon as you have four employees, you have to start having unemployment insurance and workman's compensation insurance. For a small business owner, it just like, explodes when you have employees versus independent contractors.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: So the Department of Labor has already had cases brought against it. So in a week, like, I have.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: A feeling I have a feeling they were just waiting.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: They had the cases ready.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: They had those ready.
[00:18:58] Speaker A: Hoping, hoping that this would happen. So there is opportunity here.
I don't expect the house of cards just crumbles, right? I don't expect that. But I do see how the dominoes, this one falls and then that one falls and then there's a branch and then those three fall.
I see that it could look more like dominoes than a house of cards in my mind. And the more of these cases that are heard in the courts and the more the courts are allowed then to interpret the laws that Congress wrote instead of deferring to the agencies, then I think you'll start seeing the agencies be reined in a little bit.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Good.
I'm not, I don't. There's opinions on all of it. Agencies, get rid of all of them. Keep some of them.
Do they have a place in the world at all?
Maybe. But to me, they had a, we gave them an inch and they took 50 miles and they just way overstepped what anybody ever intended for them to be doing. And they just, they just really overstepped. You know, they, they had a whole bunch of power and they really just.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Kind of, well, hopefully this will actually reign them in some.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: Before it, just because it seemed like every year, things just kept getting more and more and more burdensome to the point where it's like, with what the fisherman had to deal with, we're going to rule over you and charge you in order to do that.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: That has got to be the most absurd thing.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Being small business owners, having gone through just a very small, teeny, tiny, very friendly type situation of, you know, inspections and things like that, I can see how some of these bigger corporations dealing at that level. Holy. Holy smokes. And ours was like nothing compared to what these people are dealing with.
[00:21:28] Speaker A: Well, it would be like saying, okay, we have our meat store. It would be like saying, we have to have someone in your store at all times to make sure, to make sure that you're following every rule. And we'll check the freezers all the time to check their temperatures. And, like, they're just gonna watch you check it. Right. But we're going to, we're going to be there and make sure that everything.
[00:21:49] Speaker B: Is done and you're going to have.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: To pay for it and you're going to pay that person salary.
[00:21:55] Speaker B: And that makes me, like, want to.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Just, we would just say no. Like, we can't. We'll go, we will shut the store. Like, we can't. We can't do that.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: Most businesses would say, I can't do that.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: Right. And that's where these, this group of fishermen had gotten was, you're charging almost $1,000 a day. We can't per boat.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: We're fishermen.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: We can't do that.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: So hopefully this will rein that in a tad.
[00:22:23] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: I wanted to say one more time, happy 4 July, Independence Day. And we don't normally ask you for anything, but in our videos, we've been having, almost 90% of the viewers have been subscribers, which is an amazing thing. But we would like to expand that a little bit. And the best way that we can do that is if you share these videos with somebody that you think might enjoy them, and then they'll be able to watch them, too.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: Thank you, guys, for hanging out with us again. And until next time, bye.
