Prof. Kristin Hickman Quoted by E&E News About Supreme Court Oral Arguments Regarding Tariffs

Professor Kristin Hickman, associate dean for research & intellectual life, was quoted by E&E News by Politico regarding the oral arguments today at the U.S. Supreme Court’s over whether a legal doctrine should be used against Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff policies. Critics of Trump’s tariffs will argue that the president unlawfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to tax foreign-made goods. Prior presidents have used the 1977 law to impose economic sanctions and other penalties on foreign nations, but the law makes no mention of tariffs. Some lawyers say the doctrine does not apply to foreign policy or actions by a president while other administrative law scholars are calling on the Supreme Court to use the tariff case to reject exemptions that they said would undermine the major questions doctrine. Still others are saying that theories like the major questions doctrine apply only to regulatory efforts but not deregulatory actions that are more often pursued by Republican presidents. Prof. Hickman said that while she doesn’t necessarily agree that administrative procedure favors deregulation over regulation, efforts to ax rules may be less likely to draw major questions challenges. She said, “Deregulatory action as a matter of statutory interpretation is probably less likely to run into arguments that an agency or an administration is pushing the envelope.”