As explained in the dissent, they literally have to delegate the kind of authority in question here. It’s the hostile-genie problem: you can’t close all the loopholes in some iron-clad unambiguous way in finite space.

those loopholes and ambiguities should be left to the courts to decide with representation from both sides of the argument making their case and not some department head full of political bias and possibly an axe to grind favoring one side.

This assumes a US Supreme Court that doesn’t exist in 2024. If you want it changed, you would have to either wait till the judges change, or expand the courts.

That’s still deferring, just to the courts instead. The demand was for Congress to not defer that responsibility, and they literally can’t do that.

Deferring to agencies was not absolute. Courts could overrule if agencies were not being reasonable in their interpretation.

Isn't the whole point of the judiciary to interpret these ambiguities though?

No, their role is a lot larger than that and plenty of legal questions don’t hinge on this kind of thing. This is specifically about whether to tend to defer to agencies on the interpretation of definitions of terms and similar things related to their mandate, so long as they remain within the bounds of reason and plausibility.

A judge could go “nope, per Chevron this EPA interpretation of ‘pollutant’ looks reasonable in this context, that complaint is dismissed, but the rest of the suit may proceed”. Now they’re expected to let those arguments play out. But answering that particular kind of question definitely is not the whole point of the judiciary.

It seems crazy that Congress does not have the authority to delegate implementation details to experts. I just don't see anything in the Constitution that forbids that.

It does, the problem is the law as written doesn’t explicitly say that and this court is all about textualism when convenient.

Exactly, only when convenient. A glaring example of this is when they decided that section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment did not disqualify Trump from the ballot. The plain language is not complicated:

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No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

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Note that this amendment provides a legislative remedy: Congress can remove the disability by a two-thirds vote. Textualism, but only when it serves their purposes.

The case you’re referring to, Trump v. Anderson, was decided unanimously.

But that’s the point! The liberal justices could rule by taking into account any number of contingent factors established by decades of precedent. But the strict constitutionalists - the conservatives - should have ruled according to the text of the constitution, which is what they constantly claim they are doing. Except it seems to be just when that happens to coincide with their ideological priors.

"should have ruled according to the text of the constitution"

The actual ruling was NOT an "textualist" interpretation at all.

Here's a summary with the linked ruling in case you're interested:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/03/supreme-court-rules-state...

> The actual ruling was NOT an "textualist" interpretation at all.

That’s precisely my point. They are textualists when it’s convenient. When the textualist outcome would be unsatisfactory from an ideological perspective, then they aren’t textualists any more.

That's one possibility.

Another is that they're "originalists" in their interpretation. How do their decisions hold up if you apply that perspective?

Are there provisions in the Constitution for one Branch to delegate its powers to another?

There’s no rule against it, and it’s what Congress has done, so it’s what’s happening.

Sure there is: Article I, Section 1

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

Anything short of "all" contradicts that.

Now you need to find somewhere that says "Oh, btw.. we didn't mean 'All' but really 'some' because Congress might give some legislative powers to other branches."

That doesn't seen like a reasonable interpretation. The power is vested in Congress, so they can use it. Delegating authority to an agent is not exactly novel and it definitely doesn't somehow mean that Congress no longer has that power.

So if I give you complete authority to design and implement a new exommerce system, it means you must do it single-handedly with no delegation to anyone?

This “anything not expressly allowed must be forbidden” is the exact opposite of how US law works.

> This “anything not expressly allowed must be forbidden” is the exact opposite of how US law works.

With regards to the Constitution, the 10th Amendment would disagree.

Legislative powers, not all powers.

You don't change the law every time a new drug gets approved, you grant it certification (the framework of which is based in existing legislation). You'd only need Congress to get involved if you wanted to change the approval process itself

The constitution arguably wasn't designed for a government that did much of what it's doing. Shouldn't be hard to pass an amendment to legalize it if it's that necessary right? We needed an amendment just to federally ban booze for God's sake.

The problem I have—even with a functional Congress—is that laws will be passed with political kickbacks in mind. Irrelevant nonsense like dairy subsidies tied to telecommunications regulation to secure the necessary votes.