Anne Gorsuch, a former chief of the Environmental Protection Agency, cut a flamboyant, defiant figure in early 1980s Washington as she slashed air and water quality regulations.
She fought with environmentalists, was held in contempt by Congress and eventually resigned under pressure from the Ronald Reagan White House that had championed her. Her memoir was, appropriately, entitled: “Are You Tough Enough?”
Her son Neil Gorsuch, a Supreme Court justice since 2017, has shown his own brand of defiance and anti-regulatory fervor.
In recent years, 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. The Supreme Court will hear a pair of cases on Wednesday testing that 40-year-old case known as Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which has become the touchstone for resolving conflicts over agency power.
Gorsuch is a weird jurist. He’s an exceedingly strict textualist and is is faithful to that ideology even when it runs counter to his politics and personal beliefs. He also has a extremely strong affinity for American Indian causes and those nations’ rights – probably more so than any other federal jurist. He also was a Federalist Society darling almost exclusively because of his belief that Chevron and all its progeny were incorrectly decided and that the Congress may not delegate any of its enumerated powers or responsibilities to an executive agency.
I listened to most of the oral arguments today and Chevron days are numbered for sure.