By Greg Stohr
A legal argument that the US Supreme Court used to foil Joe Biden on climate change and student debt now looms as a threat to President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
During Biden’s presidency, the court’s conservative majority ruled that federal agencies can’t decide sweeping political and economic matters without clear congressional authorization. That blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from setting deep limits on power-plant pollution and the Education Department from slashing student loans for 40 million people.
The concept — known as the “major questions doctrine” — is now playing a central role in the case against Trump’s unilateral imposition of worldwide import taxes. With Supreme Court review all but inevitable, the justices’ willingness to employ the doctrine against Trump may determine the fate of his signature economic initiative.
The US Court of International Trade cited the Biden-era rulings and the major questions doctrine when it ruled 3-0 last week that many of Trump’s import taxes exceeded the authority Congress had given him. The challenged tariffs would total an estimated $1.4 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Critics say the administration’s tariffs would have an even bigger impact than the estimated $400 billion Biden student-loan package, which Chief Justice John Roberts described as having “staggering” significance in his 2023 opinion invalidating the plan.
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