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Trump Scraps Bedrock of Climate Rules · Bloomberg Law

0:02
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.
0:08
Speaker 2: Effective immediately, We're repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating
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Speaker 2: all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models
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Speaker 2: and engines between twenty twelve and twenty twenty seven and beyond.
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Speaker 3: It's the most aggressive move by President Trump to roll
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Speaker 3: back climate regulations. His administration has revoked a key scientific
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Speaker 3: finding that's been the central basis for US action to
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Speaker 3: regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. It's undoing
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Speaker 3: what's known as the endangerment finding, or ruling from the
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Speaker 3: EPA in two thousand and nine under former President Obama
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Speaker 3: that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health
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Speaker 3: and welfare. But Trump says it's all a scam.
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Speaker 2: Don't worry about it because it has nothing to do
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Speaker 2: with public health.
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Speaker 1: This was all a scam, giant scam.
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Speaker 3: Former EPA administrator Gena McCarthy says the endangerment finding wasn't
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Speaker 3: a political decision. It was the result of a Supreme
1:15
Speaker 3: Court ruling that ordered the EPA to conduct an extensive
1:19
Speaker 3: scientific process to review whether climate change was a hazard
1:24
Speaker 3: to health and the environment.
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Speaker 4: They are trying to make us think that the endangerment
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Speaker 4: finding it can be nullified just because they wanted to,
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Speaker 4: not because the science says so. Are the laws allowed
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Speaker 4: this to happen.
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Speaker 3: Environmental scientists and experts say that revoking the finding could
1:45
Speaker 3: have generational impacts and may speed up the negative effects
1:50
Speaker 3: of climate change. Attorneys general representing Blue states, environmental groups,
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Speaker 3: and healthcare groups say they're planning to sue over the revocation.
2:00
Speaker 3: Joining me is Michael Gerard, a professor at Columbia Law
2:03
Speaker 3: School and director of the Saban Center for Climate Change Law.
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Speaker 3: Will you explain the endangerment finding?
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Speaker 5: So?
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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court said in two thousand and seven that
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Speaker 1: if EPA finds that greenhouse gases posed an endangerment to
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Speaker 1: public health and welfare, EPA has the authority to regulate
2:22
Speaker 1: them under the Clean Air Act. In two thousand and nine,
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Speaker 1: EPA issued that endangerment finding, and since then, especially under
2:30
Speaker 1: Presidents Obama and Biden, EPA has been regulated greenhouse gas emissions.
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Speaker 3: What are their reasons for rescinding the endangerment finding?
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Speaker 1: They said that it was beyond the authority of EPA
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Speaker 1: actually to be doing this to be regulating greenhouse gases,
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Speaker 1: even though the Supreme Court said they could do that.
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Speaker 1: Now the Trump administration is saying, no, they can't, that
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Speaker 1: it's such a big issue, an important issue. THATA does
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Speaker 1: and have the authority in less. Congress explicitly says that
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Speaker 1: they can do that.
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Speaker 3: And what's the real reason, I mean, what's the reason
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Speaker 3: behind the Trump administration rescinding it.
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Speaker 1: The Trump administration is all about maximizing the demand for
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Speaker 1: and the supply of fossil fuels. Regulation of greenhouse gas
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Speaker 1: emissions gets in the way of that, and so the
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Speaker 1: particular regulations they're most focused on were moving toward more
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Speaker 1: electric vehicles, which are the main source, the main threat
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Speaker 1: to the demand for oil. President Trump says he doesn't
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Speaker 1: really believe that climate change is happening, or that it's
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Speaker 1: caused by humans, or that it's very bad. So I
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Speaker 1: think that's one of the reasons behind what they're doing.
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Speaker 1: And they think it's bad for the economy to fight
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Speaker 1: climate change.
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Speaker 3: How long have scientists been convinced that greenhouse gas emissions
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Speaker 3: caused by humans hurt the public's health.
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Speaker 1: The first science on this was emerging in the late
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Speaker 1: nineteenth century. But I would say, it's fair to say
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Speaker 1: that by the late nineteen eighties or early nineteen ninety
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Speaker 1: there was a general scientific consensus about the science of
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Speaker 1: climate change. When EPA issued the Endangerment Finding in nineteen
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Speaker 1: eighty nine, there was a ton of evidence. There's now
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Speaker 1: ten tons of evidence about climate change.
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Speaker 3: Is the Endangerment Finding considered sort of the keystone for
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Speaker 3: our environmental regulations? In other words, everything else depends or
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Speaker 3: rests on it.
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Speaker 1: Everything that EPA does under the Clean Air Act depends
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Speaker 1: on the Engagement Finding. There's some other authorities that the
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Speaker 1: administration has, but it's it's certainly by far the most
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Speaker 1: important one.
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Speaker 3: Have they gone through the proper procedures for revoking the
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Speaker 3: Endangerment Finding?
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Speaker 1: Well, they did an out say draft plan, and they
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Speaker 1: opened it up for public comment, and they then issued
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Speaker 1: the final one. So in broad strokes, I'm sure there
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Speaker 1: will be challenges to some of the details of the
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Speaker 1: procedures that they use, such as did they respond in
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Speaker 1: enough detailed all the many public comments that were provided.
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Speaker 3: The now disbanded Climate Working Group that wrote the report
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Speaker 3: was deemed unlawful in January by a Massachusetts federal court
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Speaker 3: because the group met in secret does that have any
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Speaker 3: bearing on the legality of this recision of the endangerment finding.
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Speaker 1: EPA's initial proposal was to, among other things, rely on
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Speaker 1: that report and otherwise say they don't believe climate science,
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Speaker 1: or they don't believe that climate change is nearly as
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Speaker 1: bad of the report you mentioned, who was roundly debunked
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Speaker 1: by the scientific community, including the National Academy of Sciences.
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Speaker 1: A federal court, as you said, declared that the committee
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Speaker 1: was unlawfully formed, but the Department of Energy disbanded the group,
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Speaker 1: and in this new report, they do not rely on it,
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Speaker 1: and they in fact don't deny the climate science. They're
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Speaker 1: issuing this decision without saying we are wrong that climate
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Speaker 1: change is horrible. Okay, maybe it's horrible, but we just
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Speaker 1: don't think it's a legal matter that EPA has the
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Speaker 1: authority to regulate it.
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Speaker 3: Democratic attorneys general, environmental advocacy groups, medical groups say they're
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Speaker 3: going to sue over this revocation. Can you give us
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Speaker 3: an idea of what the attack might be in the courts.
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Speaker 1: So, in two thousand and seven, the Supreme Court issued
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Speaker 1: this landmark decision Massachusetts versus EPA. They clearly said that
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Speaker 1: greenhouse gases are air pollutants within the meaning of the statute,
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Speaker 1: and that if EPA finds the danger, they have to regulate.
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Speaker 1: The administration is now going contrary to that. They're relying
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Speaker 1: on some new legal doctrines, especially something called the major
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Speaker 1: questions doctrine, that even if the words of the statute
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Speaker 1: allow an agency to act, they can't unless Congress is
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Speaker 1: really really explicit if it's something of large economic and
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Speaker 1: political significance. So that's going to be one of the
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Speaker 1: major arguments that will be made before the courts.
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Speaker 3: Do you think the aim here is to get the
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Speaker 3: Supreme Court to reverse its finding in that Massachusetts v.
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Speaker 3: EPA case.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that the Trump administration, or at least
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Speaker 1: some of its supporters, do want the Supreme Court to
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Speaker 1: either reverse the finding in the Massachusetts case or construe
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Speaker 1: it very very narrowly so that it no longer means much.
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Speaker 3: We're in year two of the Trump administration. Could the
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Speaker 3: lawsuits outlive the administration.
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Speaker 1: In the ordinary course at the first stage at the
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Speaker 1: Court of Appeals, it could take easily a year you're
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Speaker 1: in a half to get a decision, and then another
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Speaker 1: year or you're and a half to get a decision
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Speaker 1: from the Supreme Court, so that could outlass the administration. However,
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Speaker 1: it's also possible that the Supreme Court will take this
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Speaker 1: on an expedited basis, which they have done from time
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Speaker 1: to time, in which case it could all happen much faster.
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Speaker 3: And so, if it happens and the next administration to
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Speaker 3: come in is democratic administration or an administration that believes
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Speaker 3: in climate science, et cetera, et cetera, would it be
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Speaker 3: easy or difficult to sort of put it back together.
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Speaker 1: That depends on the way the Supreme Court rules. There
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Speaker 1: are some ways that the Supreme Court could uphold what
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Speaker 1: Trump is doing, but not do it so broadly that
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Speaker 1: it would prevent the next administration from acting. There are
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Speaker 1: other ways that they could uphold the withdrawal of the
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Speaker 1: engangement finding. That would mean the administration could not use
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Speaker 1: the Clean Air Act for climate change unless they get
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Speaker 1: explicit authorization from Congress.
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Speaker 3: Will this affect the state's ability to regulate pollution?
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Speaker 1: The federal government has exclusive authority to regulate motor vehicle
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Speaker 1: emissions unless Congress gets a special waiver, which has been
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Speaker 1: taken away. However, the states have comple control over stationary
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Speaker 1: sources like power plants and factories and so forth. So
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Speaker 1: this does not affect the ability of states to have
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Speaker 1: stronger pollution controls on everything but motor vehicles.
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Speaker 3: This could turn out to be a red state blue
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Speaker 3: state controversy, with the blue state suing and the red
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Speaker 3: states supporting the administration's actions. Why should this be a
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Speaker 3: blue state red state divide.
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Speaker 1: Well, it's a combination of things. They right now, the
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Speaker 1: Republican Party, as a matter of its doctrine, doesn't believe
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Speaker 1: in regulation of climate change, and the Democrats do. And
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Speaker 1: so in all these lawsuits you have the red states
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Speaker 1: on one side and the blue states of the other.
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Speaker 1: I mean the underlying There are lots of different underlying reasons.
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Speaker 1: Some of it is the economies of the state, some
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Speaker 1: as some of its ideological reasons. That's a whole other conversation.
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Speaker 3: So it was the Saban Center that came out with
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Speaker 3: these stats that the EPA has already taken more than
10:01
Speaker 3: forty deregulatory actions so far in this second term, compared
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Speaker 3: to almost sixty during the first term. So are they
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Speaker 3: moving quicker.
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Speaker 1: Yes, they are. They're being much more aggressive in the
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Speaker 1: second Trump administration than in the First, we have a
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Speaker 1: website called the Climate Backtracker that keeps track of all
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Speaker 1: of this. But Trump two is moving a good deal
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Speaker 1: faster than Trump one.
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Speaker 3: They're moving faster. Are a lot of their moves being
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Speaker 3: held up in court or not yet.
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Speaker 1: So a lot of their moves in cutting back on
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Speaker 1: funding have been held up in court and at the
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Speaker 1: district court level, and some of that has been reversed
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Speaker 1: by the appellic court, some of it hasn't here. Most
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Speaker 1: of their regulations substance of regulations as opposed to the
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Speaker 1: funding haven't gotten far enough along for there to be
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Speaker 1: really litigation. This is one of the first things that
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Speaker 1: they have done that has gone all the way through
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Speaker 1: the rulemaking process and now is ripe for On.
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Speaker 3: A scale of one to ten in terms of damage
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Speaker 3: to the environment, how would you rate the seriousness of
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Speaker 3: this revocation?
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Speaker 1: I'd probably give that an eight, because if it survives,
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Speaker 1: it does take away the Clean Air Act. But there
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Speaker 1: are still other tools that can be used to fight
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Speaker 1: climate change. Despite the opposition by the Trump administration, people
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Speaker 1: are still opening a lot of solar farms and wind farms,
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Speaker 1: and buying electric vehicles and doing lots of other improving
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Speaker 1: energy efficiency, doing lots of other things that also help
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Speaker 1: fight climate change wholly apart from the Clean Air Act?
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Speaker 3: Is the footprint of the EPA smaller? Is the staff smaller?
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Speaker 3: In other words, is the EPA shrinking?
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Speaker 1: Yes, EPA is shrinking, so are the is the environmental
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Speaker 1: unit in the Department of Justice which helps enforce the laws.
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Speaker 1: So the Trump administration has worked very hard to diminish
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Speaker 1: the effectiveness and size authority of EPA.
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Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me today. That's Professor Michael Gerard of
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Speaker 3: Columbia Law School. He's the director of the Saban Center
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Speaker 3: for Climate Change Law. Suing people is not new for
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Speaker 3: President Trump. Long before he became president, he used litigation
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Speaker 3: as a tool, filing at least sixteen hundred civil lawsuits
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Speaker 3: against individuals and businesses, and since taking office for the
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Speaker 3: second time, Trump has filed suits seeking billions of dollars
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Speaker 3: against several news organizations, including The New York Times and
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Speaker 3: The Wall Street Journal, JP Morgan Chase and its CEO,
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Speaker 3: Jamie Diamond. The pullets are Board, and even the IRS
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Speaker 3: and the Treasury. Now, when Trump was sued by two
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Speaker 3: co founders of his social media company, he asked a
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Speaker 3: Delaware Court to either dismiss the case or delay it
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Speaker 3: by four years, saying that having to defend the lawsuits
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Speaker 3: would be a distraction from his presidential duties, even though
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Speaker 3: turnabout is supposedly fair play. That argument hasn't worked for
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Speaker 3: the defendants being sued by Trump. So far, at least,
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Speaker 3: no court has delayed one of Trump's lawsuits because it
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Speaker 3: would distract from his presidential duties. Joining me is constitutional
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Speaker 3: law expert David Super, a professor at Georgetown Law.
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Speaker 2: Have we had a.
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Speaker 3: President before that's filed lawsuits? I mean, in so many
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Speaker 3: different areas. It's against media companies, it's against banks, it's
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Speaker 3: against the irs. It's a broad range.
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Speaker 6: It certainly is, And I am not aware of any
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Speaker 6: president that has found time to litigate while in office.
13:43
Speaker 6: It's a rather big job. And presidents also, I think,
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Speaker 6: have been sensitive that litigating while their president could send
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Speaker 6: the wrong signals and interfere with their ability to lead
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Speaker 6: the whole country. Trump has not embraced the idea of
14:03
Speaker 6: leading the whole country, so doing more partisan litigation has
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Speaker 6: seemed to fit better with his approach.
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Speaker 3: The last case that I remember was the Clinton case.
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Speaker 3: What kind of protection if any does the president have
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Speaker 3: against civil suits while in office?
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Speaker 6: The president's very little protection against civil suits. The Supreme
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Speaker 6: Court in Clinton.
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Speaker 5: Versus Jones upind that the president probably could do at
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Speaker 5: least the basics of defending a case while in office,
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Speaker 5: and allowed that case to proceed.
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Speaker 6: That case started the series of events that led to
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Speaker 6: President Clinton's impeachment and certainly caused him enormous political damage.
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Speaker 6: Whether Miss Jones was seeking to damage in politically or not,
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Speaker 6: it's not clear, but that others eagerly piled on were so.
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Speaker 6: In principle, it is not entitled to sweeping immunity. But
15:04
Speaker 6: President Trump has claimed that defending lawsuits would be unduly
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Speaker 6: burdensome to him now that he's president. It's not clear, though,
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Speaker 6: how it's any less burdensome to bring a lawsuit than
15:18
Speaker 6: to defend one, and he seems to be making special
15:23
Speaker 6: rules just for himself.
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Speaker 3: I don't know that we've reached the point in any
15:27
Speaker 3: of these lawsuits where Trump has said, no, I can't
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Speaker 3: do that deposition because I'm president and I'm too busy.
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Speaker 3: But if that happens, what can a judge do?
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Speaker 6: The judge can dismiss the lawsuit, although at this point,
15:43
Speaker 6: the defendants will already have had to spend an enormous
15:46
Speaker 6: amount of money the laws. It may already have served
15:49
Speaker 6: its purpose of intimidation. Some of these lawsuits have no
15:53
Speaker 6: chance of winning anyway. He's suing news organizations for news
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Speaker 6: stories that doesn't like. He's suing the Des Moines Register
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Speaker 6: for a poll and a projection that he doesn't like.
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Speaker 6: I don't even know what cause of action that is.
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Speaker 6: So these cases are not intended to win. They're intended
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Speaker 6: to intimidate. So filing them, forcing the defendants to spend
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Speaker 6: resources on them, rallying his base against the defendants, and
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Speaker 6: then eventually dismissing them when he doesn't want to be
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Speaker 6: deposed seems likely. Here the courts have authority to impose
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Speaker 6: costs on him, but that's probably not that much of
16:35
Speaker 6: a deterrent.
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Speaker 3: I mean, there's also the fact that when you're sued
16:39
Speaker 3: by the president, there are different kinds of pressures. So
16:43
Speaker 3: you had ViacomCBS settling a lawsuit, and of course they
16:48
Speaker 3: had a pending merger to be approved.
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Speaker 6: Yes, and this is in the context of the president's
16:55
Speaker 6: unified executive theory, So in priorated ministrations this happened that
17:00
Speaker 6: if an add you could imagine the president saying, well,
17:04
Speaker 6: the people making the decision on your merger are independent
17:07
Speaker 6: from me, so they won't be influenced. But this administration
17:11
Speaker 6: has made the point that everybody in the executive branch
17:14
Speaker 6: must be completely tuned in with the president's preference. So
17:18
Speaker 6: when he sues or threatens to sue a media organization
17:23
Speaker 6: that wants permission for a merger or for licenses of
17:28
Speaker 6: some kind, he is effectively telling them that they need
17:32
Speaker 6: to give him something in exchange for those licenses. It
17:36
Speaker 6: is a way of supposedly legitimating or legalizing bribe.
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Speaker 3: Why shouldn't some of these cases be put on hold
17:45
Speaker 3: until Trump's term is over? None of the judges have
17:49
Speaker 3: allowed any of these cases to be suspended during his presidency.
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Speaker 6: Well, it is true for both the president and people
17:59
Speaker 6: with Thames against the president, the statutes of limitations run.
18:03
Speaker 6: So there's an argument that the president and private party
18:07
Speaker 6: should be allowed to file suits, but there should be
18:11
Speaker 6: then a freeze on the case until after the president
18:16
Speaker 6: leaves office, having the cases go forward selectively, having the
18:22
Speaker 6: president able to extract material and resources from defendants but
18:27
Speaker 6: not provide the same himself is manifestly unfair and civil
18:33
Speaker 6: litigation with rare exception is designed to treat both parties
18:38
Speaker 6: equally until we have a resolution of the case.
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Speaker 3: So you mentioned he's suing the IRS. He and his
18:43
Speaker 3: two eldest sons filed a lawsuit against the IRS and
18:47
Speaker 3: the Treasury seeking at least ten billion dollars in damages
18:50
Speaker 3: for the unauthorized disclosure of their confidential tax returns, and
18:57
Speaker 3: in an amicus brief challenging the suit, group of former
19:01
Speaker 3: high ranking government officials said it contains legal flaws and
19:05
Speaker 3: risks becoming conclusive litigation. As the president is suing the
19:09
Speaker 3: government he presides over, this suit hit me as the
19:14
Speaker 3: most inappropriate. Is the IRS going to fight the president?
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Speaker 6: No? Again, The unified executive theory says that the president
19:22
Speaker 6: absolutely controls the defense against the president's own case. There's
19:26
Speaker 6: no way this case can be legitimately litigated now, even
19:30
Speaker 6: if someone wanted to, and if it is litigated to judgment,
19:34
Speaker 6: a future administration could quite properly demand that the case
19:38
Speaker 6: be reopened and then any damage award be reversed and returned,
19:43
Speaker 6: because there will not be any true adversy here, just
19:48
Speaker 6: as when a prosecution is filed by someone who is
19:53
Speaker 6: controlled by the defendant and they throw the case and lose,
20:00
Speaker 6: or when the jury was tampered with by the defendant,
20:03
Speaker 6: double jeopardy does not attach because there is never any
20:06
Speaker 6: serious risk of losing. In the same way here, the
20:10
Speaker 6: president's judgment would not be entitled to any weight because
20:16
Speaker 6: he controls the defense and never has any possibility of
20:20
Speaker 6: losing these cases.
20:22
Speaker 3: The other thing in all these cases, particularly HRS case,
20:25
Speaker 3: is that how does he prove damages when his net
20:28
Speaker 3: worth has increased since he became president.
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Speaker 6: These cases are absurd on the merits. You don't need
20:36
Speaker 6: to know much about them to know that they are ridiculous.
20:40
Speaker 6: There's also serious questions about how he could show fault.
20:46
Speaker 6: The president again claims he runs the entire executive branch,
20:51
Speaker 6: who was president when these leaks occurred. Why he was
20:55
Speaker 6: so Perhaps he ought to sue literally himself for mismanaging
21:02
Speaker 6: the federal government during his first term. He's probably can
21:07
Speaker 6: afford to pay himself whatever damages are appropriate. Here, the
21:11
Speaker 6: case is completely ridiculous, and one might be tempted to
21:17
Speaker 6: look for an exception if the case was completely compelling.
21:22
Speaker 6: The claim that Paula Jones filed against Bill Clinton. On
21:27
Speaker 6: its face was a serious claim, a plausible claim, and
21:31
Speaker 6: you could understand why she would need to file it
21:34
Speaker 6: before the statute of limitations expired. If someone were to
21:39
Speaker 6: do something conventionally harmful to the president, to steal his
21:45
Speaker 6: car or something like that, then you could imagine why
21:48
Speaker 6: he might need to go to court. But these cases
21:51
Speaker 6: are obviously absurd.
21:53
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever used the word unseemly, but
21:55
Speaker 3: I was trying to think of how unseemly it is
21:58
Speaker 3: for the President of the United States to be suing
22:02
Speaker 3: so often for billions of dollars. It's sort of hard
22:05
Speaker 3: to comprehend why, except that he's trying to make a
22:09
Speaker 3: political point with these I mean suing, as you said,
22:12
Speaker 3: the Des Moines Register for a poll that didn't turn
22:15
Speaker 3: out to be right. If every politician sued over a
22:17
Speaker 3: pole that didn't turn out to be right, the court
22:19
Speaker 3: to be clogged.
22:21
Speaker 6: And both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris would be very,
22:24
Speaker 6: very rich to say how they know Thomas Dewey. But
22:29
Speaker 6: the problem people have I'm not trying to understand this.
22:32
Speaker 6: I'm looking for American parallels, and that's wrong. They should
22:36
Speaker 6: look for international parallels because authoritarian leaders routinely use litigation
22:41
Speaker 6: to silence the press. You see this in numerous countries
22:44
Speaker 6: around the world, where media outlets simply cease to function
22:49
Speaker 6: because they know they'll be sued by the administration and
22:54
Speaker 6: they will lose and they will be bankrupted. So they
22:57
Speaker 6: either never write about the administration or they move out
23:00
Speaker 6: of the country or the fold. And this country is
23:04
Speaker 6: following some very unfortunate precedents overseas. Just one more thing.
23:09
Speaker 6: The Constitution says the president shall draw a salary at
23:13
Speaker 6: regular intervals and shall not receive any further emoluments from
23:17
Speaker 6: the States or the United States. And the term emoluments
23:22
Speaker 6: has been hotly debated, but broadly speaking, they're saying the
23:26
Speaker 6: president should work for a salary and a salary only.
23:29
Speaker 6: This is effectively a way of getting more money into
23:34
Speaker 6: the president's hand, which the framers very much did not
23:38
Speaker 6: want to happen. They wanted the president focused on the
23:40
Speaker 6: national good. And certainly, when he sues a justice department
23:45
Speaker 6: that he controls, he's increasing his pay. But when he
23:49
Speaker 6: sues entities that need his executive brands to give them favors,
23:55
Speaker 6: he's also increasing his pay, and that's something the framer
24:00
Speaker 6: were acutely aware of. And forhibot It.
24:03
Speaker 3: I've been talking to constitutional law professor David super of
24:06
Speaker 3: Georgetown Law. So the Solicitor General's Office during this second
24:13
Speaker 3: Trump term is filing unsolicited briefs. In other words, in
24:18
Speaker 3: the process of the Supreme Court deciding whether or not
24:22
Speaker 3: to take a case or not, they're filing these briefs.
24:25
Speaker 3: They're not really on areas that the United States or
24:29
Speaker 3: federal government is implicated, and they're on like policy matters,
24:33
Speaker 3: like they're doing it more than any other administration. What
24:36
Speaker 3: are they up to?
24:38
Speaker 6: The Lesser General's Office regards the Supreme Court as profoundly
24:43
Speaker 6: sympathetic to their mission and they're trying to get the
24:46
Speaker 6: most possible out of it. This is not something that
24:49
Speaker 6: happened in the nineteen sixties, when the War in Court
24:55
Speaker 6: was relatively liberal and we had a liberal It was
25:00
Speaker 6: understood that the Court handled what it wanted to handle,
25:04
Speaker 6: and there are many cases that were presented to the
25:07
Speaker 6: War in Court that it didn't take that history could
25:10
Speaker 6: be very different if it had taken. This administration doesn't
25:14
Speaker 6: want to do the reverse. It has a majority that
25:19
Speaker 6: has proven very cohesive and quite reliable for them on
25:23
Speaker 6: all but a very small handful of issues, and is
25:26
Speaker 6: trying to move the ideological framework of law in its direction.
25:33
Speaker 3: I read some people saying, well, the administration might be
25:36
Speaker 3: using up its capital with the Court, but I don't
25:38
Speaker 3: know if that's possible with this administration and this court
25:42
Speaker 3: with the six Conservatives.
25:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think what they're doing here is trying to
25:48
Speaker 6: get cases pulled out of the pile. The Supreme Court
25:52
Speaker 6: gets an enormous number of cases, and there certainly are
25:56
Speaker 6: four votes out of the six Conservatives to brant review
26:01
Speaker 6: on any number of things that will advance the conservative agenda.
26:07
Speaker 6: This lesser general, I think, is trying to weigh in
26:10
Speaker 6: and identify cases that it wants special attention to, and
26:13
Speaker 6: it's been fairly successful. If it was using up its
26:17
Speaker 6: capital with the Supreme Court, you would expect the Court
26:21
Speaker 6: to turn down some of these cases as a caution
26:26
Speaker 6: to the administration to stay and explain. But so far
26:29
Speaker 6: we've seen no indication that the Court is uncomfortable at all.
26:34
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court has scheduled Friday, February twentieth as its
26:38
Speaker 3: next opinion day. Amid this global weight for a ruling
26:43
Speaker 3: that could invalidate most of President Trump's signature tariffs. The
26:50
Speaker 3: tariff clash is one of twelve cases that were argued
26:53
Speaker 3: in October or November and haven't yet been decided. Why
26:57
Speaker 3: do you think it's taking the justices so long to
27:01
Speaker 3: come to a decision In this case.
27:03
Speaker 6: The oral argument went terribly for the administration. I mean,
27:06
Speaker 6: that's very clear. So I don't think there are five
27:11
Speaker 6: votes to give them a win, and the next best
27:14
Speaker 6: thing for them would be a delay. And the administration
27:20
Speaker 6: has argued, both in public and to some extent of
27:23
Speaker 6: the court that they need this power to extract concessions
27:27
Speaker 6: from other countries. And there may well be justices who
27:31
Speaker 6: believe in the end they can't sustain this. But the
27:34
Speaker 6: longer they give the administration this authority, the more it
27:39
Speaker 6: can dissolve the tariffs as part of deals rather than
27:43
Speaker 6: as a judgment.
27:44
Speaker 3: But it heard arguments November fifth on an expedited basis,
27:49
Speaker 3: setting a schedule that suggested an ultra fast ruling might
27:53
Speaker 3: be in the offing. Obviously it wasn't, but all we
27:58
Speaker 3: can do is wait and see. Thanks so much. That's
28:01
Speaker 3: Professor David super of Georgetown Law. And that's it for
28:05
Speaker 3: this edition of The Bloomberg Law Show. Remember you can
28:07
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28:11
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