FEMA 50% & Chevron Deference

[woollybully]

Jurisdiction

Florida

With the Loper Bright decision, who wants to challenge the FEMA 50% rule that was never passed by Congress?

 

[Zigner]

This is not a referral forum, nor should you rely on any attorney that may troll internet forums for business.

 

[woollybully]

Wasn't looking to hire anybody personally. Just wondering if this was a topic with the recent floods. Lots of people having significant issues with FEMA in the Tampa Bay Florida area due to this regulation that is a perfect example of regulatory overreach.

 

[Zigner]

Wasn't looking to hire anybody personally. Just wondering if this was a topic with the recent floods. Lots of people having significant issues with FEMA in the Tampa Bay Florida area due to this regulation that is a perfect example of regulatory overreach.

You misunderstand the purpose of this forum. If you have questions about an actual legal matter that you are involved in, please ask.

 

[woollybully]

I am dealing with the headaches regarding inspections around the rule, but don't necessarily need assistance as yet. However, a challenge to the overreach by FEMA would help a great number of folks.

 

[zddoodah]

With the Loper Bright decision, who wants to challenge the FEMA 50% rule that was never passed by Congress?

I have no idea.

Do you have a legal question for us?

 

[Tax Counsel]

With the Loper Bright decision, who wants to challenge the FEMA 50% rule that was never passed by Congress?

If Congress had put it in a statute there would have been no need for a regulation in the first place. The purpose of federal agency interpretative rule making is to fill in the (typically small) details that Congress didn't deal with in enacting the law. The most obvious examples are, of course, things like agencies prescribing the forms necessary for the public to use. But there are more substantive regulations that agencies issue that still nevertheless fall within the scope of their rule making power. We don't yet know where those lines post Loper Bright will be, and the chances are good that it'll be at least a decade or more before there is enough case law to have reasonably useful bright lines to use.

That uncertainty means that anyone taking on the kind of litigation today that you suggest needs to have pretty high confidence they can win AND the deep pockets to fund it. In most litigation against the federal government the plaintiff cannot recover legal fees from the government (in general there must be a statute that authorizes the plaintiff to recover those fees) so the litigants will have to have a stake here worth a good chunk more than the legal fees they'll incur to go down that road.

Not just anyone can bring the lawsuit, either. It has to be a person with what the law calls standing. That basically means the plaintiff who was actually adversely affected by the actions of the defendant. Lawyers interested in taking that on will already be contacting those affected by the disaster looking for the right case to bring.