by Michelle Diament Disabilityscoop
Countless federal regulations ensuring the rights of people with disabilities to everything from health care to community living could face legal challenges after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent.
In a ruling issued late last month, the high court said that courts should no longer defer to the interpretation of federal agencies in situations where laws are ambiguous.
The decision in the case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo throws out the court’s 1984 ruling in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which has shaped how federal agencies have gone about their work for decades. Under that approach, the government has relied on its experts at each agency to fill in the details clarifying how various laws should be applied in practice.
Now, advocates fear that the Supreme Court ruling will effectively open the federal rulebook to litigation, a situation that could have massive implications for people with disabilities. It also could make federal agencies far more cautious in how they go about crafting regulations in the future.
