Awww - I didn’t mean to beg for praise but totally would have if I thought it would work out like this! Thank you so much for the most amazing experience writing legal publication #1 & for all the lovely ideas, inspiration & encouragement in the years since ❤️❤️❤️

We often see nature as an absolute good that must be protected from human influence. But this mindset is dangerous, argues @ArdenRowell, leading us to focus only on how our projects might degrade the environment, not how they might improve it.

Meanwhile LAW STUDENTS can plan to take administrative law…and be patient with their professors 😊

THE PUBLIC has an interest in how businesses do, how effectively & efficiently agencies operate + in whether the country has a good and stable power structure. The public has no direct control over what SCOTUS/federal courts do--the Constitution purposefully insulates judges from

That said, some businesses will have the option to allocate resources to “think creatively” about challenging even long-held agency interpretations, as per https://t.co/ZJJaaIZlUR; for businesses w/particular interpretations they want to challenge (& resources to challenge), +

For BUSINESSES there will be substantially increased federal regulatory uncertainty at least in the near term (with continuing uncertainty if Congress doesn’t act). Depending on your industry, exposure & positioning, that could be good or bad for business. For many it will mean

Resource management will be challenging as it will be difficult to achieve the same functions while having to allocate resources towards managing uncertainty in litigation/litigation prep. Some functions are likely to be slowed & to require more public funds to do less. Absent

AGENCIES also have a few strategic moves. Traditionally scholars (e.g. @chris_j_walker @amysemet) have found that agency statutory interpretation is different than courts’. Now’s the time for agencies to invest in judicial flavored statutory interpretation instead (hopefully

OIRA/OP meanwhile needs to develop a primer for agencies to adjust their statutory analyses both now & as courts refine LB’s new “independent judgment” standard. They also need to comment on/adjust regulatory guidance to how agencies should be thinking about their own authority.

THE PRESIDENT has limited power here—the power struggle affects him but how much power he has will be mostly determined by Congress + lower courts. But he still has a few moves. Immediately the Pres can move to allocate litigation resources according to priorities + to ID which

If Congress doesn’t act, then LOWER COURTS will be implementing LB. LB creates a lot of power for courts to use their “independent judgment” – all that power that used to belong to Pres & agencies, but which courts can now use to tell agencies what they think is best. Now if

Most importantly CONGRESS has the power to decide which of its co branches—courts or the Pres—gets to be the default boss of agencies. Congress can do this by (a) doing nothing & letting SCOTUS have its way, (b) passing an amendment to the APA or a separate bill to “legislate

Why is this only a “potential” huge power shift with “potential” big disruption? Because how much change really happens depends on what Congress—and to some extent lower courts—do next.

What’s to like about this big change? It’s good if you agree w/SCOTUS that a big power infusion into SCOTUS/fed courts is good, or if you think the Pres should never have had that power to begin with. The more you trust current SCOTUS, or don’t trust the current Pres (or whoever

First though, what’s the potential power shift? Basically agencies have a lot of power, so controlling what they do is also a lot of power. For > 40 yrs under Chevron that power belonged to the President & the Pres’s experts/agencies (whenever Congress hadn’t directly weighed

Loper Bright (LB) has the potential to change the structure of power in the U.S. Is that good or bad? Depends on who you are, where you think power should be + what you think of disruptive change. A day-of-opinion 🧵about who/what could stop the change (= Congress/lower courts)

If you liked this thread, you might like my new favorite article of mine, which just came out – it’s called Indoor Environmental Law. It’s text-only, but I think still fun (?)!

In the real world, though, environmental law already saves hundreds of thousands of lives every year—and that’s with one hand tied behind its back. I’m hopeful and excited to see what it can do with all hands on deck.

Ofc there are people who dislike environmental law even when it is only outdoors. Those folks may be cringing now at the thought of even more environment(s). I get it. Environmental risks are such a pain in the mind to think about—it’s tempting (but wrong) to just wish them away.

We can ask and (hopefully eventually) answer questions we just didn’t realize mattered before we took off our blinders.

Suddenly we can identify indoor environmental externalities. We can start thinking about how people can get the info they need to make choices even in places they control, or whether the way (esp. uncontrollable) indoor environmental risks are distributed is fair or just.