Supreme Court issues rulings on opioid settlement, overturns Chevron doctrine

You're reading Route Fifty's State and Local Roundup. To get the week’s news to use from around the country, you can subscribe here to get this update in your inbox every Saturday. In the meantime, be sure to read to the end as we've rounded up headlines from the week.

The Supreme Court handed down several decisions during this blockbuster week that will affect state and local governments.

ICYMI: Route Fifty has covered some of the high-profile cases. Friday, the court upheld camping bans that cities use to move homeless people off of public land. Another ruling significantly scaled back the scope of an anti-corruption law for state and local officials. And a third decision threw out a lawsuit by conservative state attorneys general alleging that federal agencies trying to stop the spread of disinformation online were violating the First Amendment’s protections for free speech.

But while the high court on Friday handed a win to several cities and states, which had issued friend-of-the-court briefs in support of anti-camping laws, the federal government didn’t fare as well. 

Federal regulations overturned: The six-member conservative majority sharply limited the regulatory power of federal agencies, upending a system that’s been in place for 40 years in which courts were supposed to defer to the expertise of agency officials in interpreting ambiguous laws.

“Agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo could affect regulations governing the environment, health care, financial markets, consumer rights and workplace safety.

Twenty-seven Republican state attorneys general had pushed the high court to end the so-called Chevron Doctrine. The group said the approach had led to the creation of a “fourth branch” of the federal government—federal agencies—that quickly expanded their power. “Agencies expanded fast,” the GOP lawyers wrote. “They abused their power, and real people suffered real harm.”

But critics, including the court’s three liberal judges, said the effect of the decision is to take power away from people with expertise and give it to federal judges instead.

“In every sphere of current or future federal regulation, expect courts from now on to play a commanding role,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan. “It is not a role Congress has given them. … It is a role this court has now claimed for itself, as well as other judges.”

Health experts from Georgetown Law said the decision, along with its 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade’s protections for abortion, “illustrate once again the justices’ disregard for long settled precedent.”

Friday’s decision “reflects the latest attack in a long-running campaign to weaken federal agencies and their ability to address pressing policy challenges that affect our nation’s health, safety and the environment,” wrote Georgetown Law’s Lawrence Gostin, Andrew Twinamatsiko and Zachary Baron. “This ruling not only limits how Congress may rely on experts in a politically accountable, co-equal branch of government, it also concentrates power in the courts, making them the ultimate arbiters of policy and political issues.”

Opioid settlement upended: Just a day earlier, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the $6 billion opioid settlement with Purdue Pharma, which sought protection after thousands of lawsuits were filed blaming the maker of OxyContin for prescription-opioid overdoses. A five-judge majority, in a decision written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the proposed bankruptcy settlement was invalid because it protected third parties—namely, the Sackler family that had owned the company—from legal claims.

Most of the money from that settlement had been directed to state and local governments. (Those governments are still in line to receive billions of dollars from other pharmaceutical companies, though.)

The case pit states against each other. William Tong, the Democratic attorney general of Connecticut, one of the states that challenged the settlement, said, “The U.S. Supreme Court got it right—billionaire wrongdoers should not be allowed to shield blood money in bankruptcy court.”

But Josh Stein, the Democratic attorney general of North Carolina (and a gubernatorial candidate), promised to keep fighting. “The court’s ruling means we now have to go back to the negotiating table. Purdue and the Sacklers must pay so we can save lives and help people live free of addiction,” he said, according to The New York Times. “If they won’t pay up, I’ll see them in court.”

Emergency abortions allowed (for now): Also on Thursday, the Supreme Court cleared the way for Idaho hospitals to again provide emergency abortions.

The court took the rare step of saying it should not have accepted a case in a controversy over the state’s new abortion ban. The Biden administration tried to block the ban, arguing that it ran afoul of the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, when abortions were necessary to save the life of the mother. The Supreme Court took the case in January and allowed Idaho’s abortion ban to go into effect while justices considered it.

In the order, the justices sent the case back to lower courts to resolve key issues and put the abortion ban on hold.

Although there were five votes to send the case back, there was no controlling opinion. Justice Amy Coney Barrett said it would be “imprudent” to review the case now, since Idaho law had changed twice since the beginning of the lawsuit. Kagan, meanwhile, said Idaho’s lawyers had not provided a good reason why the Supreme Court should take up the case before it went through the normal channels.

But Justice Samuel Alito, the author of the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said the court should have ruled on the matter. He said the decision not to was “baffling.” The court received friend-of-the-court briefs from 44 states and the District of Columbia, not to mention 379 members of Congress, he noted.

Alito also blasted the Biden administration’s argument. “Far from requiring hospitals to perform abortions, EMTALA’s text unambiguously demands that Medicare-funded hospitals protect the health of both a pregnant woman and her ‘unborn child,’” he wrote.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum from Alito, also said the court should have resolved the case immediately.

“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she wrote. “While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”

“This court had a chance to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we have squandered it. And for as long as we refuse to declare what the law requires, pregnant patients in Idaho, Texas, and elsewhere will be paying the price,” she continued. “Because we owe them—and the nation—an answer to the straightforward pre-emption question presented in these cases, I respectfully dissent.”

Air pollution rules weakened: In another 5-4 decision, the court sided with three states that want to block federal air pollution rules designed to cut smog that travels over state lines. The majority sided with Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia in their bid to put on hold “good neighbor” plans mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency for states that don’t comply with ozone regulations. The majority granted a stay of the rules while lower courts continue to hear arguments on whether they should take effect.

But wait, there’s more: On Monday, the court is expected to issue the last decisions of its current term. Those cases deal with potential criminal immunity for former President Donald Trump, more challenges to federal administrative rules and state regulations of social media moderation.

Keep reading as there’s more news to use below, and if you don’t already and would prefer to get this roundup in your inbox, you can subscribe to this newsletter here. We’ll be back July 13.

News to Use

Trends, Common Challenges, Cool Ideas, FYIs and Notable Events

• LGBTQ+ RIGHTS: Supreme Court will take up state bans on gender-affirming care. The high court on Monday jumped into the fight over transgender rights, agreeing to hear an appeal from the Biden administration seeking to block state bans on gender-affirming care. The justices’ action comes as Republican-led states have enacted a variety of restrictions on health care for transgender people, school sports participation, bathroom usage and drag shows. The case before the high court involves a law in Tennessee that restrict puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The federal appeals court in Cincinnati allowed laws in Tennessee and Kentucky to take effect after they had been blocked by lower courts.


• CLIMATE CHANGE: Hawaii reaches first settlement in youth climate case. A deal with young climate activists has been reached in a first-of-its kind legal settlement, giving youth a role in curbing planet-warming emissions while avoiding a major trial. The agreement announced late last week requires the Hawaii Department of Transportation to develop a plan to fully decarbonize ground, sea and interisland air travel by 2045. It also creates a youth council to provide feedback to the state agency. The settlement marks a major victory for the 13 young plaintiffs in the case, which had been scheduled to go to trial—the second proceeding of its kind in the U.S.— in Honolulu this past Monday. In the first U.S. youth climate trial, which took place last year in Montana, a court ruling said the state had violated young people’s rights by preventing analysis of climate effects in environmental reviews of energy projects.


• TRANSPORTATION: NYC transit agency votes to halt congestion pricing. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority voted on Wednesday not to proceed with congestion pricing in Manhattan, which was set to start on June 30, after the state's governor directed the action. The transit agency said it was putting $16.5 billion in capital projects on hold—including major expansion projects such as extending the Second Avenue Subway, upgrading aging signal systems and train cars, and purchasing 250 electric buses. The MTA has already canceled contracts and halted work on one key subway expansion project and has said it could put federal grant funding at risk.


• SCHOOLS: Public funds for religious charter school unconstitutional, court says. The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped what would have been the first publicly funded religious charter school in the U.S. The high court determined a vote last year to approve an application by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma to establish a charter school violates the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” The case is being closely watched because supporters of the school believe recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions have indicated the court is more open to public funds going to religious entities. Meanwhile, the state’s top education official on Thursday ordered all public schools in the state to incorporate the Bible into their curriculum as a historical text. And in Louisiana, a group of parents of different faiths filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging Louisiana’s new law requiring public schools to post the Ten Commandments, setting up a legal battle that could have far-reaching implications for students’ rights and religious freedom.


• FINANCE: Pennsylvania to begin new fiscal year without budget. Work by Pennsylvania lawmakers to complete a new budget was on track to blow into the new fiscal year. For Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, it will be his second straight budget that failed to get across the finish line by the constitutional deadline of July 1 in Pennsylvania’s politically divided government. Shapiro in February floated what he called an “ambitious” $48.3 billion budget plan that relied on about $3 billion in reserve cash to balance it. The budget  has drawn GOP objections that it would lead to quickly draining the state’s massive surplus.


• DEATH PENALTY: Indiana seeks first execution since 2009. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb said Indiana will resume executions for the first time in over a decade after acquiring a drug used for lethal injections. Holcomb said Wednesday that the state is seeking an execution date for Joseph Corcoran, a man convicted in the killings of four people in 1997. Indiana’s last execution was in 2009, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Like many states, Indiana has struggled to find the drugs typically used to perform lethal injections.


• DROUGHT: A crucial drought-monitoring tool can’t keep up with drying West. Policymakers and elected leaders in Western states use the U.S. Drought Monitor to make critical decisions about water use, campfire bans, declarations of emergency and more. And multiple federal agencies use the map to determine how much financial aid is filtered to ranchers and farmers in times of drought. But what was once considered an exceptional, rare drought is no longer so rare, according to a study published this spring in AGU Advances, a scientific journal. An “exceptional drought”—the most severe category of drought, depicted in dark red—should occur in a region only 2% of the time, according to the monitor’s guidelines. But some areas of the Western U.S. have been in exceptional drought 18% of the time.


• ETHICS: Government watchdogs lose some oversight powers in Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis quietly approved new restrictions late last week on how watchdog commissions can investigate state and local officials for suspected public corruption and ethical violations. Under the new law, state and local ethics panels will be allowed to investigate complaints against public officials only if someone with personal knowledge “other than hearsay” is willing to identify themselves by name and file a complaint under oath about suspected wrongdoing. The measure also strips local ethics panels’ ability to launch their own investigations into ethics violations and sets uniform statewide standards for ethics rules, meaning that local ethics boards will not be able to set more stringent standards.


• PUBLIC HEALTH: Masks are going from mandated to criminalized in some states. State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among COVID-cautious Americans. Republican lawmakers in North Carolina overrode this week Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway. Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces. Lawmakers eager to reinstate pre-pandemic mask restrictions say legislation would not target medically vulnerable people and others trying to avoid respiratory viruses. But critics say such an approach would be impractical and sets mask wearers up for further ostracization and harassment by police and fellow citizens.


• FINANCE: Illinois’ landmark credit card fee law prompting strong opposition. Illinois lawmakers in the closing hours of the General Assembly’s spring session last month became the first in the nation to ban banks and credit card companies from charging retailers a seemingly small fee on sales taxes and tips. But since the governor signed the ban into law, financial institutions that opposed the measure have ratcheted up their opposition and amplified their rhetoric, running online ads in Illinois declaring the ban “MAY FORCE YOU TO PAY FOR PARTS OF PURCHASE IN CASH,” and print ads saying, “Tipping on your credit card is closed to Illinoisans.” While some supporters say those claims are hyperbolic, the new law is setting up what could be a yearslong fight between the state and financial institutions that argue the overhaul is not only a bad idea but is unrealistic because it calls for implementation in a little more than a year.


• PUBLIC HEALTH: “Food as medicine” gains acceptance in state legislatures. With America facing an obesity epidemic, it’s no wonder some are embracing the concept that food—simple, healthy, nutritious food—is medicine in and of itself, a philosophy that’s growing in popularity among health care providers. Studies have found that tailoring meals for patients battling obesity or diabetes can have a tremendous, positive impact on their health. State legislators across the country are beginning to embrace the idea, introducing legislation to make food covered by state-run health plans or establish pilot programs to explore the idea. So far, eight states have considered bills that would pave the way for coverage of “food as medicine,” and only Colorado has enacted such a bill.


• ABORTION: 3 female GOP S.C. senators who filibustered abortion ban lost primaries. The three Republican South Carolina senators who filibustered an abortion ban in the state have lost in their primary elections this month to three male candidates. Katrina Shealy, Sandy Senn and Penry Gustafson were among a bipartisan group of five women state senators who filibustered a near-total abortion ban. They were nicknamed the "sister senators." As a result of their coordinated effort, the group was chosen last year to receive the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.

Picture of the Week

New: The @MBTA confirms that, yes, they actually put googly eyes on a few trains, after a Green Line trolley was spotted with them yesterday at Packard's Corner: https://t.co/SyS0BgtIzN pic.twitter.com/iRJRarNpQV

— Nik DeCosta-Klipa (@NikDeCostaKlipa) June 26, 2024

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, or MBTA, has added “googly” eyes to five vehicles. The transit agency says after receiving public suggestions, its team found a safe way to install the googly eyes on a limited number of Green Line and Commuter Rail vehicles. The MBTA says it hopes the small gesture can "bring moments of joy to our riders daily commutes."

Government in Numbers 

110 million

The number of people, or about one-third of the U.S. population, that were affected by pollution from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment. Federal investigators confirmed Tuesday that a hot railcar wheel bearing sparked a fire and caused the massive derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying tank cars with hazardous materials in 2023. A thick, tall plume of black smoke billowed from the accident site for days and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents. Now, scientists say that traces of this pollution was found across 16 states, spanning 540,000 square miles from Wisconsin to Maine to South Carolina. The scientists tracked the pollution from the fire by testing rain and snow samples from approximately 260 sites across the country in the two weeks following the derailment. The analysis, published in the journal Environmental Research Letters, estimates that the fire impacted about 14% of U.S. land area.