Last week The Supreme Court overruled a decades-old doctrine commonly referred to as the Chevron deference. To put it simply, The Chevron deference is a doctrine that is used when there is an ambiguous statute (law). When ambiguous, courts usually defer to an agency's (Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Education, The Small Business Administration, etc) interpretation of the ambiguity. The reason for doing so is because the Court initially held the belief that these agencies had area expertise, so they were in a better position to clear up ambiguities. Last week, this was overturned. Now, that ambiguity is supposed to be cleared up by courts. So, power has in some way been shifted from government agencies to the courts.
What does this mean for Black people? According to the Small Business Administration, Black business owners own 3.5 million businesses and employ more than 1.2 million people. Small businesses have to comply with several regulations to remain in business. Normally, they don't have the same resources as larger corporations to deal with the complex legal landscape. Now, they may have to take some extra steps to be aware of which side courts are leaning.
Another aspect that should be noted is the effect this may have on the inner city. Since the Environmental Protection Agency was created in 1970, they were given a broad amount of power to regulate pollution and waste. Elements such as these have negative impacts on the inner city and cost money to administer and execute punishment for noncompliance. If courts use the new control they've just been given, inner cities may see the negative ends of the deal here.
This article is not meant to be apocalyptic, but purely informative. The way the pendulum swings and the way the government has operated the last few years, some safeguards may be placed soon so there isn't a significant change in the status quo. Of course, the statutes can be drafted in a more specific manner to avoid any ambiguity. Another result could be that when the courts are interpreting, they come to the same conclusions that the agencies would have. All rational possibilities, but only time will tell.