Could This Supreme Court Ruling Affect Fair Housing?

Although the Supreme Court’s June decision in West Virginia v. EPA squarely focused on the federal government’s powers to combat climate change, the ruling sent a tremor though the lawyers and advocates who fight to make sure communities provide fair access to housing and work to desegregate their neighborhoods.

In a 6-3 vote, the court’s conservative majority struck down the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, saying Congress had never given the EPA clear authority to limit greenhouse gas emissions. While the ruling was not unexpected, its dependence on a judicial theory called the “major questions doctrine” raised concerns that the conservative justices could use it to knock out other parts of the administrative state they disagree with.

The question of how much authority Congress can delegate to government agencies like the FDA and OSHA has come up in previous cases, but the EPA suit is the first where a majority decision explicitly cited the major questions doctrine.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Elena Kagan argued that the Clean Air Act gives the EPA ample authority to regulate any air pollutants, including greenhouse gases, and cited the concept of Chevron deference, in which courts honor agency interpretations of ambiguous laws. But Chief Justice John Roberts rejected her take on the case, writing in the majority decision that “it is not plausible” that legislators gave...