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The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case that could significantly scale back federal agencies’ authority, with major implications for the future of environmental and other regulations. The justices next term will consider whether to overturn a decades-old precedent that grants agencies deference when Congress left ambiguity in a statute. Named for the court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Chevron deference has become one of the most frequently cited precedents in administrative law since the decision was first handed down in 1984. It involves a two-step test: First, judges decide if Congress...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday tossed out greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy-duty truck trailers, ruling two government agencies had exceeded their authority. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) in 2016 set rules for the first time requiring trailer manufacturers to adopt fuel-saving technologies like side skirts and automatic tire pressure systems. An industry group challenged the rule, which was put on hold by the court pending the review. The administration of then-President Barack Obama said it was important to regulate the fuel efficiency of the trailer portion of commercial...

The Senate on Thursday voted 51-42 to confirm Trump nominee Judge Justin Walker to the second-highest court in the country, marking the 199th Article III judge confirmed to this point in the president's term. The vote was nearly along party lines, with only GOP Maine Sen. Susan Collins joining Democrats in opposition. Walker will join the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, where he previously worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Walker also clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and served as an intern for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a speechwriter for former...

A federal judge overturned North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s orders Saturday that sought to cap religious services at no more than 10 people while businesses and other organizations in the state were left to accommodate up to 50. The double standard, District Court Judge James C. Dever ruled in the Eastern District of North Carolina, was an overt show of distrust among those gathering to worship and deemed the directive illegal, according to the News and Observer. “The record, at this admittedly early stage of the case, reveals that the Governor appears to trust citizens to perform non-religious activities...

With the Senate back to business in Washington, D.C., this week, the body moved ahead with what Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said is his top priority -- confirming judges -- this time with the Senate Judiciary Committee holding a tense hearing for a Trump nominee named to a powerful slot on the nation's second-highest court. The committee Wednesday considered the nomination of Judge Justin Walker to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, also known as the D.C. Circuit, the first step to confirming the 37-year-old judge after he was nominated early last month. The...

Donald Trump’s most lasting legacy will be his appointments to the federal bench. In his tenure so far, the Senate has confirmed 193 judges, 51 of whom were circuit judges. All were nominated by President Trump. Indeed, President Trump and the Senate have confirmed federal appellate judges faster than any other president in U.S. history. For all judges, President Trump’s rate is the second fastest. The Senate returns to Washington next week, and on the agenda is another stellar judicial nominee, Judge Justin Walker. Walker is the quintessential Trump appointee. He’s young, he has impeccable legal credentials, and he has...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Wednesday joined a growing chorus of Democrats calling on Senate Republicans to pause their efforts to confirm federal judges when the Senate returns on May 4 amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the GOP seems less interested in passing further measures to combat the virus than they are in putting more of President Trump's nominees on the federal bench. "The GDP just had its biggest drop since the Great Recession, the United States has surpassed one million confirmed positive cases of COVID-19, and we still don’t have adequate testing," Schumer said in a statement....

On Saturday, American Thinker pointed out that Democrat-run jurisdictions, at both the state and the local level, seem to be enjoying a little too much the power that a public health emergency has put into their hands. One of the examples was the order Mayor Greg Fischer issued in Louisville, Kentucky. He banned all Easter services, including drive-ins, and explicitly instructed his police department to write down the license plate numbers of people attending a drive-in Easter Sunday service. The On Fire Christian Center sought an emergency temporary restraining order in the United States District Court for the Western District...

Kentucky’s largest city cannot halt a local church’s drive-in service planned for Easter, a federal judge on Saturday ruled. The ruling came as Republicans blasted Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s statewide plan to order people into quarantine if they attend mass gatherings, including religious ones. On Fire Christian Church had sued Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and the city after Fischer announced drive-in style religious gatherings were not allowed on Easter.

Well, at least one federal judge has some common sense. Louisville Kentucky Mayor, Greg Fischer, attempted to ban drive-in Easter church services and use local police to arrest and detain any non-compliant parishioners. The church quickly sued Mayor Greg Fischer and the city of Louisville on Friday, arguing the mayor’s directive for churches to forgo gatherings to help slow the spread of COVID-19 violated Constitutional rights and their religious liberty. The judge agreed. District Court Judge walker issued an emergency restraining order banning the city from “enforcing; attempting to enforce; threatening to enforce; or otherwise requiring compliance with any prohibition...

A judge in Louisville, Kentucky issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would stop Mayor Greg Fischer from preventing a church from having a drive-in Easter service. According to the First Liberty Institute, a religious law group, the TRO was filed on Friday in the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky on behalf of On Fire Christian Church located in Louisville. Judge Justin Walker granted the order on Saturday, preventing the city from "enforcing; attempting to enforce; threatening to enforce; or otherwise requiring compliance with any prohibition on drive-in church services at On Fire," according to court...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville-based church was granted an injunction in response to the city's crackdown on drive-in services. Earlier this week, On Fire Christian church sued Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer and the city of Louisville, arguing the mayor's action to stop drive-in services at churches was a violation of constitutional rights. Advertisement According to court documents obtained by WLKY, Kentucky District Judge Justin Walker issued a temporary restraining order Saturday, which says the city is banned from stopping On Fire Christian Church from holding the services. "The Court enjoins Louisville from enforcing; attempting to enforce; threatening to enforce; or...

President Trump continues his record-breaking transformation of the federal judiciary with the selection of Judge Justin Walker -- a young, brilliant conservative legal mind and everyday American -- for the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Walker, a new federal trial judge in Louisville, Kentucky, is a first-generation college graduate, an outside-the-beltway legal powerhouse, and a committed constitutionalist who understands a judge’s modest, but critical, role is to interpret the law as written -- not how that judge wishes it were written if he were a senator. Very few Trump could pick for this sought-after seat would...

Golly gee! Senator working SOOO hard! In their BUSY Tuesday-Thursday schedule, they held eight votes, four of which were cloture votes, so they really only voted on four things. Two treaties, an ambassadorship, and one Kentucky judge (Mitch is from Kentucky). Only 11 judges confirmed SINCE JULY.

This will be a weekly post. Count is now 155 judges confirmed. 110 District Court judges 43 Circuit Court judges 2 Supreme Court justices The Senate Judiciary committee voted out two Circuit nominees to the floor this week, one for the 2nd and one for the 9th.

ustin Walker, who vigorously advocated for the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation of his former boss, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, drew pointed questions Wednesday during a Senate hearing on his own federal court nomination after the American Bar Association deemed him “not qualified” for the bench. Walker, 37, a litigator at Dinsmore & Shohl who also teaches at Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville, was tapped by President Donald Trump for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky. A former clerk to Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit,...