환경청의 규제정책에 대한 미국 연방대법원의 판례 비판

The United States enacted the Clean Air Act to regulate air pollution at the federal level and granted the Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) broad regulatory authority. The Supreme Court has broadly recognized the EPA’s discretion based on the Chevron deference principle for the EPA’s passive regulatory policy, but has recently been abolishing the above principle and reducing the EPA’s discretion through legal theories such as the principle of material issues regarding the EPA’s active regulatory policy, showing a tendency to prioritize the interests of the industry over the public interest in the environment. The Supreme Court respected the EPA’s interpretation of the law by applying the Chevron deference principle in Chevron U.S.A. v. NRDC in 1984, but in UARG v. EPA in 2014, it denied the EPA’s interpretation of the expanded scope of greenhouse gas emissions regulations. Furthermore in Michigan v. EPA in 2015, it denied the reasonableness of the EPA’s interpretation of the law that did not consider costs in the regulatory decision-making stage, eventually in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, it invalidated the EPA’s Clean Power Plan based on the Major questions doctrine, further reducing the EPA’s authority. In the era of climate crisis, the U.S. Supreme Court’s precedents on environmental regulations could further solidify the limits of the legislature and the executive branch. In this paper, I will analyze the judiciary’s standards for reviewing the legal interpretation of administrative agencies, and critically review the EPA’s legal interpretation to seek directions for the practical implementation of judicial action in the era of climate crisis.