Welcome back to the tech policy podcast.

I'm Corbyn Barthold, Internet Policy Council at Tech Freedom.

2020 marked the arrival of the major questions doctrine at the Supreme Court.

What exactly arrived?

Is it a completely new thing?

Or just the first use of that label at the High Court?

Depends on who you ask.

The main ruling is West Virginia versus EPA. The court struck down the EPA's clean power

plan, which attempted to impose, roughly speaking, a carbon cap and trade program on existing

coal power plants. We've had other notable major questions cases recently.

There was the CDC eviction moratorium case in which the Centers for Disease Control tried to seize power over landlord-tenant relationships.

There was the OSHA vaccine or test mandate case in which our federal government's workplace safety regulator tried to tell people what medical procedures they should get.

And there was the student loan cancellation case in which the Department of Education tried to turn an emergency loan

adjustment power into a loan cancellation power. There are also several potential major

questions cases coming down the line. These cases may or may not be decided ultimately on major questions grounds. They may or may not

make it to the Supreme Court, but all of them are big deals. There is the FCC Digital Discrimination

Rule, the FCC Title II rule, the SEC Climate Disclosure Rule, the SEC crypto litigation,

the FTC non-compete ban.

There's even a federal highway administration case floating around.

This is a big topic.

The basic contours of the major questions rule is set out in West Virginia versus EPA, the seminal 2022 decision. It is a fundamental canon of statutory

construction. That decision says that the words of a statute must be

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