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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> Why can't Congress write complete regulatory statutes? Isn't that literally their job? Yes, it is.

No, it's not. That's like saying it's the CEO's job to write every design document in a company.

It not only doesn't make sense -- it's not even possible from a perspective of information throughput.

It sounds like you're saying that Congress should approve drugs rather than the FDA. Absolutely not. Congress should write the regulations that govern how the FDA operates, and then the FDA should operate.

And let's remember -- if Congress doesn't like what a regulatory agency is doing, it can pass legislation to change that. If it doesn't, we can assume it approves. Therefore the courts have no business stepping in -- except obviously when there is genuine conflict between laws or with the constitution. But that's not what you're talking about.

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I do not expect Congress to atomically approve or disapprove every regulatory action. That is a straw man. I expect them to write clear laws that state what agencies can do, what they cannot do, and how they should do it.

The case before the court is a good example of how the opaque and unaccountable nature of a federal agency allows them to serve their own self-interest at the expense of the citizens they are supposed to protect. Specifically, Congress specified in law that "authorizes the government to require trained, professional observers on regulated fishing vessels". But their law did not specify who would pay for these observers. So under Chevron, the agency got to decide. And, shocker! They decided they did not have to pay for it.

This ruling stops that specific abuse, and hopefully many others. The actions of federal agencies is not generally a thing to be desired.

Ok so now let's challenge what trained means, and what professional means, and what observer means, and what regulated means, and what fishing means, and what vessels mean and so on and so forth.

I would be surprised if courts had not already heard and decided cases on the meaning of all those terms. But if they haven’t, then sure I guess they should. But precedent means they would only have to be decided once, not repeatedly litigated over and over as you seem to suggest.

>But precedent means they would only have to be decided once

I find it interesting we are discussing a case where precedent was overturned, and you are suggesting precedent will fix something.

> That is a straw man. That is a straw man. I expect them to write clear laws that state what agencies can do, what they cannot do, and how they should do it.

But laws can't do that in infinite detail. It's literally impossible. So it's not a straw man at all -- that was my point.

At some point, regulatory agencies, like anything in the executive branch, have to decide for themselves how to get their job done. Because they have to do that a million times every day.

If Congress didn't specify who will pay for the observers, it makes much more sense to leave it up to the agency than to the courts, except in cases of obvious abuse, corruption, etc. -- which this does not appear to be.

I agree it sucks that the fishing vessels have to pay for the observers, but it seems obvious to me that the body to fix that is Congress. If the fishing industry can't get the agency to change it, then they should be contacting their Congressional representatives to change it. And Congress either will or won't, but that's literally who is in charge of this.

It seems like a strange issue for the courts to get involved with, because there's no conflict with other laws or with the constitution.

Clearly it is not impossible for federal agencies to function without the Chevron ruling. How do you think they functioned before 1984?

This does not change that in the least. What changes is that if e.g. the FDA is acting in a way that does not seem to fall within their legal mandate, then people have more freedom to take legal action to ensure they fall back to within that mandate. And I think this is extremely important. The United States it not a dictatorship. People should have the right to challenge organizations which seem to be going beyond (or even against) their legal mandate.

If Congress is unhappy with how this plays out, they're completely free to clarify any sections that get challenged.

Congress isn't the CEO, the president is the CEO. Congress is the body responsible for writing the company's policy documents.

Yes. In an analogy to a corporation, the Congress is the Board, and the President is CEO. The board approves the corporate bylaws, the Congress approves the laws.

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