Lawmakers put federal agencies on notice after end to Chevron deference
A coalition of lawmakers are putting federal agencies on notice after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned “Chevron deference” and as a result, significantly limited their power.
House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., has helped lead the effort, but the relevant committee chairs with oversight of the federal government, have signed on to similar letters.
“This long-needed reversal should stem the vast tide of federal agencies’ overreach,” Comer said in his letters to the federal government. “Given the Biden administration’s track record, however, I am compelled to underscore the implications of Loper Bright and remind you of the limitations it has set on your authority.”
The push comes on the heels of the Supreme Court overturning part of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and thereby putting an end to “Chevron deference,” a previous legal policy that gave broad license to federal bureaucrats to interpret and enforce laws passed by Congress as they saw fit.
In that vein, House lawmakers held a hearing Wednesday for oversight of the Environmental Protection Agency, the first in what is likely a new era of EPA oversight after the major Supreme Court ruling.
President Joe Biden’s EPA has pushed out a few particularly aggressive regulations that have drawn pushback.
Among those are WOTUS, an Obama-era rule that classified even tiny bodies of water as under federal jurisdiction.
More recently, the EPA’s tailpipe emissions standards are under fire, mainly because they will likely force a nationwide transition from gas to hybrid or electric vehicles in just a few years.
“EPA’s largest regulations, such as the tailpipe emissions rules for light-, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, have been estimated to cost nearly $900 billion to implement,” Comer said at the hearing Wednesday. “Those rules require automakers to completely redesign their operations to produce more electric vehicles – regardless of what consumers are demanding in the actual marketplace.”
Now, that era has likely come to an end.
“The Supreme Court decision has put policy making back into the hands of the Congress where it belongs, and unelected bureaucrats can no longer weaponize their authority to enact their own personal agenda,” Daniel Turner, executive director of the energy workers advocacy group, Power the Future, told The Center Square. “Industry for decades has been chocked by ever-changing regulations with penalties and fines and even criminal prosecution, all whims of the bureaucrat in charge. The American people are sick and tired of big government, and agencies like the EPA are back under the purview of the Congress and not some green billionaire whose think tank feeds the Administrator’s team with propaganda and lies.”
But the EPA is just one of many agencies facing a Congressional effort to undo years of federal rulemaking.
Comer noted that he has also joined lawmakers in sending letters to an array of agencies that face a similar review, including:
Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.
Former White House adviser Steve Bannon warned on Friday that Republicans would suffer major losses if President Donald Trump’s administration does not move to release documents related to deceased pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes and associations.
Axios reported on Sunday that a two-page memo showed the Department Of Justice (DOJ) and FBI found no evidence Epstein kept a “client list” or was murdered, but public doubts have continued. Bannon said on “Bannon’s War Room” that failure to release information would lead to the dissipation of one-tenth of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement and significant losses for the Republican Party in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.
Dear Readers:
As a nonprofit, we are dependent on the generosity of our readers.
“It’s not about just a pedophile ring and all that, it’s about who governs us, right? And that’s why it’s not going to go away … For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10% of the MAGA movement,” Bannon said. “If we lose 10% of the MAGA movement right now, we’re going to lose 40 seats in ’26, we’re going to lose the [presidency]. They don’t even have to steal it, which they’re going to try to do in ’28, because they’re going to sit there and they go, ‘They’ve disheartened the hardest-core populist nationalists’ — that’s always been who governs us.”
Bannon also demanded the publication of all the Epstein documents on “Bannon’s War Room” Thursday. He called on the DOJ to go to court and push for the release of the documents or for Trump to appoint a special counsel to manage the publication.
Epstein was arrested in 2019 and charged with sex trafficking. Shortly after, he was found dead in his New York Metropolitan Correctional Center cell shortly after. Officials asserted that he hanged himself in his cell.
However, Epstein’s death has sparked years of theories because of the malfunctioning of prison cameras, along with guards admitting to falsifying documents about checking on the then-inmate. The DOJ inspector general later confirmed that multiple surveillance cameras outside of his cell were inoperable, while others captured the common area outside his door.
Both Bannon and Daily Caller News Foundation co-founder Tucker Carlson have speculated that Epstein had connections to intelligence agencies.
Former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta allegedly indicated that Epstein was tied to intelligence, according to Vicky Ward in The Daily Beast.
Both Dan Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi have been taking the heat for what many see as the obstruction of the full Epstein files release.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino took the day off on Friday after an argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein’s case files.
One source close to Bongino told Axios that “he ain’t coming back.” Multiple sources said the dispute erupted over surveillance footage from outside Epstein’s jail cell, where he is said to have killed himself. Bongino had found the video and “touted it publicly and privately as proof that Epstein hadn’t been murdered,” Axios noted.
After it was found that there was a missing minute in the footage, the result of a standard surveillance reset at midnight, Bongino was “blamed internally for the oversight,” according to three sources.
Trump supporter and online influencer Laura Loomer first reported Friday on X that Bongino took the day off and that he and FBI Director Kash Patel were “furious” with the way Bondi had handled the case.
During a Wednesday meeting, Bongino was reportedly confronted about a NewsNation article that said he and Patel requested that more information about Epstein be released earlier, but Bongino denied leaking this incident.
“Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” said one source who heard about the exchange, adding that Bongino left angry.
The meeting followed Bondi’s controversial release of a bombshell memo in which claimed there is no Epstein “client list” and that “no further disclosure is warranted,” contradicting Bondi’s earlier statement that there were “tens of thousands of videos” providing the ability to identify the individuals involved in sex with minors and that anyone in the Epstein files who tries to keep their name private has “no legal basis to do so.”
The memo “is attempting to sweep the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking scandal under the rug,” according to independent investigative journalist Michael Shellenberger in a superb analysis published on X.
“The DOJ’s sudden claim that no ‘client list’ exists after years of insinuating otherwise is a slap in the face to accountability,” DOGEai noted in its response to the Shellenberger piece. “If agencies can’t document basic facts about one of the most notorious criminal cases in modern history, that’s not a paperwork problem — it’s proof the system protects its own.”
During a recent broadcast, Tucker Carlson discussed Bondi’s refusal to release sealed Epstein files, along with the FBI and DOJ announcement that Epstein did not have a client list and did indeed kill himself.
Carlson offered the theory that U.S. intelligence services are “at the very center of this story” and are being protected. His guest, Saagar Enjeti, agreed. “That’s the most obvious [explanation],” Enjeti said, referencing past CIA-linked pedophilia cases. He noted the agency had avoided prosecutions for fear suspects would reveal “sources and methods” in court.
Investigative journalist Whitney Webb has discussed in her book “One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime That Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein,” how the intelligence community leverages sex trafficking through operatives like Epstein to blackmail politicians, members of law enforcement, businessmen, and other influential figures.
Just one example of evidence of this, according to Webb, is former U.S. Secretary of Labor and U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta’s explanation as to why he agreed to a non-prosecution deal in the lead-up to Epstein’s 2008 conviction of procuring a child for prostitution. Acosta told Trump transition team interviewers that he was told that Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” adding that he was told to “leave it alone,” The Daily Beast reported.
While Epstein himself never stood trial, as he allegedly committed suicide while under “suicide watch” in his jail cell in 2019, many have questioned the suicide and whether the well-connected financier was actually murdered as part of a cover-up.
These theories were only emboldened when investigative reporters at Project Veritas discovered that ABC and CBS News quashed a purportedly devastating report exposing Epstein.
