Mar 11, 2023
Richard Yates
This Note calls on the Court to renounce its major questions doctrine because: (1) it is imprecise and lacks analytical rigor; (2) it aggrandizes the judiciary at the expense of the executive and legislative branches in contravention of the separation of powers; (3) existing administrative judicial review mechanisms without the major questions doctrine offer more than adequate oversight to ensure that agency actions are justified; and (4) it calls into question the integrity of judicial decision making by infusing judicial oversight with a conservative ideology that seeks a weakened administrative state. This Note will demonstrate how the doctrine is imprecise and lacks analytical rigor using Judge Walker’s separate opinion in American Lung Association v. Environmental Protection Agency as well as four petitions seeking certiorari from the D.C. Circuit’s decision on Clean Air Act section 111(d).