How Gorsuch’s 'own brand of defiance' was shaped by his mother’s failed gig as EPA head

When former Rep. Anne Gorsuch Burford (R-Colorado) — the late mother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch — was heading the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the early 1980s under President Ronald Reagan, she drew a great deal of criticism from environmentalists and some Democrats in Congress for weakening air and water regulations.

Burford ended up resigning, much to the disappointment of her son (who was in his teens at the time).

In an article published by CNN on January 17, Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic stresses that Justice Gorsuch has followed in his mother's footsteps with "his own brand of defiance and anti-regulatory fervor."

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"In recent years," Biskupic explains, "Justice Gorsuch has voted against regulations that protect the environment, student-debt forgiveness and COVID-19 precautions. During a COVID-19 spike in early 2022, Gorsuch was the lone justice who declined to wear a mask while sitting on the bench. He has led calls on the Court for reversal of a 1984 Supreme Court decision that gives federal agencies considerable regulatory latitude and that, coincidentally, traces to his mother's tenure."

On January 17, according to Biskupic, the High Court is scheduled to hear arguments in cases testing the Reagan-era 1984 ruling in Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

"The issue comes down to Congress' ability to write open-ended laws that delegate policy details to agency officials," the CNN journalist notes. "The Chevron principle dictates that when disputes arise over regulation of an ambiguous law, judges should defer to agency interpretations of the law if the interpretations are reasonable. The Chevron case has steered disputes over countless directives intended to protect the public, such as from air pollution, workplace hazards, risky drugs and medical fraud, or to guarantee certain benefits, such as people with disabilities and elderly."

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, according to Biskupic, will defend that 1984 ruling.

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Prelogar, in a filing, told the Roberts Court, "Overruling Chevron would be a convulsive shock to the legal system. All three branches of government, regulated parties, and the public have arranged their affairs for decades with Chevron as the backdrop against which Congress legislates, agencies issue rules and orders, and courts resolve disputes about those agency actions."

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Read Joan Biskupic's full CNN article at this link.