The Supreme Court may decide as soon as Friday whether to tackle a new case that could further constrain the power of US regulators to delve into American businesses and individual lives.
In recent rulings, this conservative-dominated high court has been diminishing regulatory control for consumer protection, public health and the environment. The justices’ opinions have revealed major separation-of-powers concerns, along with a particular disdain for the countless pages of rules government imposes and a disregard for agency expertise, whether involving health services, workplace safety or consumer affairs.
The new case picks up from a battle three years ago involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, when opponents targeted the agency’s structure and tried to dismantle its authority to safeguard mortgages, car loans, credit cards and other lending practices.
By a narrow vote, the justices struck down the CFPB’s single-director setup but allowed it to otherwise continue operating. Now, the agency is back before the high court, under scrutiny for its funding, which Congress established outside the usual appropriations process to ensure the bureau’s independence.
The court majority in 2020 signaled an openness to the new grounds now asserted to topple the CFPB. What’s more, Chief Justice John Roberts fixated on the issue during oral arguments in the previous case and may have been planting seeds for where the court is today.
“Does the independence of the agency from the budgetary process further weaken the democratic accountability through the president,” he asked at one point during the oral arguments in March 2020. He later added: “they don’t even have to go to Congress to get their money.”
This line of argument against the CFPB is based on novel, largely unexplored grounds that, if adopted, would undermine a range…
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