Over opposition from two conservative justices, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned away a challenge that could\u2019ve gutted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An Ohio-based construction contractor backed by Republican-led states and anti-regulatory interests contended Congress unconstitutionally delegated its legislative powers<\/u><\/a> to the executive branch when it gave such broad authority to the agency, which sets and enforces workplace standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a brief order, the court declined to take up the contractor\u2019s appeal after a lower court rejected the challenge. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas\u2002<\/u><\/a>and Neil Gorsuch\u2002<\/u><\/a>publicly indicated they would\u2019ve taken up the case, but at least four votes were needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gorsuch did not provide an explanation, but Thomas did<\/u><\/a>, arguing the OSHA challenge presented an \u201cexcellent vehicle\u201d to tackle the weighty constitutional issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe question whether the Occupational Health and Safety Administration\u2019s broad authority is consistent with our constitutional structure is undeniably important,\u201d Thomas wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He noted that other conservatives on the Supreme Court \u2014 Chief Justice John Roberts\u2002<\/u><\/a>and Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh \u2014 have over the years expressed an interest in \u201creconsidering this Court\u2019s approach\u201d to Congress\u2019s delegations of power to federal agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thomas contended that the Labor Department agency\u2019s power extends to \u201cvirtually every business in the United States,\u201d quoting a years-old dissent from Kavanaugh where he said the agency asserts authority from the design of a power lawnmower to the amount of contact allowed between trainers and whales at SeaWorld. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Occupational Safety and Health Act may be the broadest delegation of power to an administrative agency found in the United States Code,\u201d Thomas wrote. \u201cIf this far-reaching grant of authority does not impermissibly confer legislative power on an agency, it is hard to imagine what would.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He further argued that it would be \u201cno less objectionable\u201d if Congress allowed the IRS to tax anyone it deemed \u201cappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The challenge to OSHA was brought by Allstates Refractory LLC, a small general contractor in Ohio that provides furnace services to the glass, metal and petrochemical industries. It was backed by 23 Republican state attorneys general and a variety of libertarian legal groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They looked to use the case to take another bite at shrinking the size of the \u201cadministrative state\u201d following the Supreme Court\u2019s decisive victory for conservative and anti-regulatory interests in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The contractor was represented before the high court by Don McGahn,<\/u><\/a> who served as White House counsel to former President Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The high court\u2019s decision on Tuesday to turn away the appeal comes days after it invalidated the Securities and Exchange Commission\u2019s in-house enforcement system<\/u><\/a> used to seek civil fraud penalties. Though the case presented a similar issue to the OSHA petition, the court resolved the case on other grounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And last week, the court took a sledgehammer to the power of executive agencies by overruling the Chevron deference<\/u><\/a>, a now-defunct legal doctrine that instructed judges to defer to agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier in the term, however, the court preserved the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by upholding its funding mechanism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n