Case brought to Supreme Court by herring fishermen may gut federal rulemaking power

The U.S. Supreme Court wrestled Wednesday with the implications of overturning a nearly 40-year-old precedent that could weaken the way the federal government regulates, well, everything.

A system in place for decades has governed how judges review curbs on air and water pollution, gun safety measures and workplace protections. But conservative legal foundations and business groups have urged the court to scrap that system, arguing it hands too much power to federal agencies at the expense of Congress and the judiciary.

Several of the court's conservative justices expressed deep skepticism of the current framework. But all three left-leaning justices offered support for keeping the system in place. And Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, raised concerns about "inviting a flood of litigation" if they reversed course.

By the end of the arguments, which extended more than three hours, it wasn't clear there were five votes to overturn the precedent, or whether a majority of the court might find a way to impose new limits on it.

Justice Elena Kagan threw tough hypothetical questions at the challengers' attorneys, asking if federal judges are really the best positioned to answer questions about whether a new cholesterol-lowering product would be a dietary supplement or a drug.

"And it's best to defer to people who do know, who have had long experience on the ground, who have seen a thousand of these kinds of situations," Kagan said, referring to agency experts. "And, you know, judges should know what they don't know."

The case revolves around an unlikely set of plaintiffs: a group of herring fishermen based in Rhode Island and Cape May, N.J. One of them is Bill Bright, a first-generation fisherman whose family has