This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, February 27th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The Supreme Court this week turned down an opportunity to review potential regulatory overreach by the IRS. Why did they do it?

The court seems to have an appetite to rein in agencies that like to make their own rules.

So why turn down a case that seemed to provide an opportunity to curtail

so-called Chevron deference? Cato's Will Yeatman comments.

The Supreme Court denied certiorari, a petition for certiorari, to review a February order by the

Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Baldwin v U.S. And this is a big deal because this case was the perfect vehicle. It had the perfect facts and the

perfect legal context for any justice that was interested in taking on Chevron.

By passing on this case, if you read the tea leaves, the court seems to be suggesting that at this time Chevron reform is on the back burner.

That said, as Justice Gorsuch noted in a recent opinion, it was a Gandhi v U.S. regarding

non-delegation regarding a different administrative law doctrine than this

judicial deference. These doctrines are related.

They're not independent, which is to say that just because the court

has backed off of Chevron reform, just because Chevron reform is now on the back burner

that very well may indicate that the justices that a critical mass of justices

interested in the pursuit of reigning in the

administrative state has decided to allocate its limited resources it's

fire powder it's gunpowder if you will on a different doctrine. For example,

non-delegation, this principle that the courts must police the extent of power

that Congress gives away to these executive branch regulatory agencies

via this process known as delegation. So it's there's sort of two levels of

...