Supreme Court Deregulates Tesla FSD and Cars

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The Supreme Court overruled the Chevron Deference. This ruling has existed for 40 years. It was the courts letting regulatory agencies of the US government decide about ambiguous situations. The courts would decide about facts but let the agencies interpret many things.

The Agencies are not allowed to make things up as they go along. Congress creates laws and was letting the Executive Branch through agencies determine how to interpret things. Now, the judicial branch has taken back its power as interpreter of laws. If laws are unclear then either the judicial branch makes it clear or kicks it back to Congress to work and agree on clear laws. If Congress is unable to agree on some of the laws then there will be no law or regulation in those specific cases.

The Courts will interpret anything ambiguous or undefined or require Congress to specify. The agencies do not get primacy in these interpretations. Power and the work goes to the courts and Congress. Congress will have to do more work and get more detailed agreement on laws. Interpretation of the law will by the courts.

Electric vehicle regulations are most at risk.
Powerplant regulations are at risk.
Climate regulations that were poorly defined will go to the courts and to Congress.
Healthcare and labor laws, communication technology and many other areas are impacted.

Companies and US states can challenge poorly defined areas will enable clawing back power and pushing back on agencies.

The new situation is that the agencies still do everything explicitly authorized by Congress. However, the agencies and bureaucracy cannot go beyond explicit authorization of their own.

This means for self driving cars and driver assist then the Department of Transportation NHTSA cannot regulate driver assist and self driving cars without creating a standard for driver assist and self driving cars. The Congressional authorization is that the NHSTA must create the standard and then force compliance to that standard. The NHTSA has been lazy and has been giving itself authorization to just decide to regulate everything about cars even without creating the standards to inform companies what compliance is needed.

This is across all of the government where regulations were being made without getting that explicit authorization by Congress. The Environmental Protection Agency chose on its own to extend its pollution control authorization to include carbon dioxide.

15 thoughts on “Supreme Court Deregulates Tesla FSD and Cars”

  1. For those dancing in the streets about the supreme court letting the dogs out, I need to say something. Hey gang, I’m an honest to God, hard core capitalist. I started my first company when I was 24, sold it before I was 29, and made a butt load of money. when I sold my first company and went on to do other things. I love free enterprise! OK, that said. There is a term: “rational actors”. In math, this refers to a stable equation inserted into an equation that is falling apart. You insert this “rational actor” into your equation to “prop it up”. The point is, your equation falls apart, no much how often or so hard you, prop it up.

    That same concept, applies to politics and society as well. That’s just harder to deal with, when it’s something you believe in. Know how propaganda works? It doesn’t try to convince you of what you don’t believe. It works really well, when it reenforces what you WANT to believe. Next time someone tells you something you WANT to hear? Ask questions. Just for the hell of it…

  2. And what’s our Trump dominated supreme court going to deregulate next? Clean water, air, anything that protects your life? I guess we’ll all find out, perhaps some of us the hard way…

  3. OK, and how much money did Musk give which right wing justice? Oh Christ, do I have to draw you a map? This is insane. But it’s also inevitable when certain people, with a certain level of power, do things that affect all of us, don’t care enough to notice. You notice after you get f*****. But you chose not to notice while it’s happening? WAKE UP, and do something before THAT happens! We all have the ability to predict/create the future by what we do right now. Today, and what we do, is what creates the future. Lets make it a future, we all wish to live in. It’s really up to us, every moment, of every day. Everything we do, creates our future. Lets make our future so very cool…

    It starts with YOU, RIGHT NOW. No s*** gang.

  4. Meh. I for one applaud this. Better crafted laws, re-defining and diminishing victim culture, empowering experiment and opportunity, etc. — this what the US was always about – high risk, high gain. You want your 32-hour work week or your low-emission/ child-proof consumer items go to Europe.

  5. The loss of the Chevron defense standard will mean more pollution (EPA), less safety in work conditions (OSHA), more financial fraud (SEC, FDIC, OCC etc.), more accidents (NHTSA, DOT etc.), etc. also on the state and local level, where money is even more scarce than on the federal level to fight protracted lawsuits in the grindingly slow and over-burdened judicial system, that is unqualified to opine on highly complex matters previously left to regulators. It also weakens an already weak Congress in making laws that actually work, while strengthening the courts, who will now legislate from the bench.
    This is another in a series of stare decisis violating decisions undoing decades of precedent by the most radical court in U.S. history.

    • Well, it’s not just about results, right? An eco friendly dictator would also get “ things done”.

      Now congress will have to take responsibility for the rules. Sensible regulation are more likely to pass, and blatant overreach – such as the case at hand where the fishing boats had to pay for fishing regulations (!) – will be hard to pass into law.

      Overall, a huge win for humanity.

      • Not at all. A loss, a complete loss, as Scott Baker has posted. This SCOTUS is giving several entities total impunity to operate as wanted, with a minimum of rules and laws to stave off any wrongdoing. We, the people, will suffer.

        • If an “entity” acts with total impunity then news flash: Congress can pass a law. That is what Congress is meant to do. We have three branches of government, not four.

    • The loss of Chevron means Congress will have to something other than enrich themselves via insider trading. They will have to actually make laws.

      “It also weakens an already weak Congress in making laws that actually work,” Well the job of Congress is to make laws so sounds like they need to do what they are meant to do.

    • You have it completely backwards.

      This shifts power FROM:
      1. unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who are easily captured by industry
      2. large corporations and the super-wealthy who have the scale for lawyers and lobbyists plus the ability to hire or enrich bureaucrats

      It shifts power back TO the people who have none of these and forces congress to write specific laws and to be accountable to their constituents for bad laws.

      Even regulatory bureaucracy fan RFk says it’s a mixed bag and only because he thinks he knows how to create a wise, benevolent and unconflicted bureaucracy.

  7. Careful.

    Pointing out the (obviously true fact) that the EPA war on coal, oil, and gas doesn’t have a legal foundation will get you branded as a climate denier.

    • I’ll just pick one example. Does anyone remember Lake Erie? Dead fish, water on fire, that sort of thing. Today the lake is a wonderful place because everyone wasn’t so hung up on politics they could see the damage was awful and chose to fix it. The legal foundation for regulating this type of thing is “the pursuit of happiness”. Watching
      children die from lead pipes and toxins is a pretty good foundation and to limit such regulation is suicide (obviously true fact).

      • So why not legislate? I’m sure that you could get both local and federal government onboard for cleaning up lakes.

        But you cannot get a majority in favour of levying a 700 USD/day fee on fishing boats to finance fishing regulations. Or banning sales of (clearly labelled) unpasteurised milk.

        And therein lies the problem. It’s precisely these unreasonable things that you want under the cover of the issues that everyone agrees with.

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