US Says Loper Bright Irrelevant for Section 301 Suit
The U.S. said the Supreme Court's decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which eliminated the principle of deferring to federal agencies' interpretations of ambiguous statutes, "is not pertinent" to the massive lawsuit on the validity of the lists 3 and 4A Section 301 tariffs (HMTX Industries v. United States, Fed. Cir. # 23-1891).
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Responding to claims from the plaintiffs that Loper Bright will play a large role in deciding the case (see 2407310025), the government argued that the decision spoke only to the court's role in reviewing decisions taken under the Administrative Procedure Act, whereas the Section 301 decisions at issue here were made by the president. In the decision, the high court said that since the APA instructs courts to decide any legal questions, the principle of Chevron deference flies in the face of this instruction (see 2406280051).
The U.S. said where courts review the "highly discretionary" decisions of the president, the courts shall only review whether there's a "clear misconstruction of the governing statute." Loper Bright doesn't "undermine this standard because it does not address action by the President or the President’s discretion to act in the area of foreign affairs," the government said.
Even if Loper Bright were to be invoked, the Court of International Trade held that the "statute unambiguously authorized the challenged modification," not even allowing the case to proceed to interpretations of ambiguous statutes, the government said. In addition, Section 301 itself includes terms such as "appropriate," which establish that Congress meant for deference to be shown to decisions taken under this statute, the U.S. argued.
"The repeated use of 'appropriate' when authorizing Presidential discretion in this area confirms that Congress has committed the matter to Presidential discretion," the brief said.