Goodlatte Floor Statement on H.R. 4768, the “Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016”

Chairman Goodlatte: The need for the Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016 to restore balance in our federal system is clear. The modern federal administrative state is an institution unforeseen by the Framers of our Constitution and rapidly mushrooming out of control. This legislation takes square aim at one of the biggest roots of this problem – the Chevron doctrine, under which federal courts regularly defer to regulatory agencies’ self-serving and often politicized interpretations of the statutes they administer. This includes interpretations like those that underlie the EPA’s Clean Power Plan and Waters of the United States rules. These are just a few examples of rules consciously designed by regulatory agencies to violate Congress’ intent. They threaten to wipe out the nation’s key fuel for electric power generation and extend the EPA’s permitting tentacles into every puddle in every American backyard. This bill also takes on the related Auer doctrine, under which courts defer to agencies’ self-serving interpretations of their own regulations. Auerand Chevron deference work hand-in-hand to expand the power of federal bureaucrats to impose whatever decision they want as often as they can, escaping whenever possible meaningful checks and balances from the courts. In perhaps the most famous of the Supreme Court’s early decisions, Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice Marshall declared for a unanimous court that, “[i]t is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.” Since the Chevron doctrine allows judges to evade interpreting the law, and instead to defer to agencies’ interpretations, one must ask – is Chevronfaithful to Marbury and the separation of powers? In the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, often called the “constitution” of administrative law, Congress provided for judicial review of agency action in terms that were plain and direct. It stated that “the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law [and] interpret constitutional and statutory provisions[.]” That standard is consistent with Marbury and the separation of powers. But since Chevron allows judges to escape interpreting statutory provisions themselves, one must ask – is Chevron unfaithful, not only to Marbury and the separation of powers, but also to the Administrative Procedure Act? These are not just academic questions. They are fundamental questions that go to the heart of how our government works and whether the American people can still control it. Judicial deference under Chevron weakens the separation of powers, threatening liberty. It bleeds out of the Judicial Branch power to interpret the law, transfusing that power into the Executive Branch. And, it tempts Congress to let the hardest work of legislating bleed out of Congress and into the Executive Branch, since Congress knows judges will defer to agency interpretations of ambiguities and gaps in statutes Congress did not truly finish. This leads us down the dangerous slope James Madison warned against in Federalist 47 – “[t]he accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands,” that “may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” The Separation of Powers Restoration Act of 2016 is timely, bold legislation directed straight at stopping our slide down that dangerous slope. In one fell swoop, it restores the separation of powers by legislatively overturning the Chevron doctrine and the related Auer doctrine. This is reform that we must make reality for the good of the people. I thank Rep. Ratcliffe for his introduction of this important legislation. I urge my colleagues to support the “Separation of Powers Restoration Act,” and reserve the balance of my time. Click here to learn more about the bill. ###