Congress Never Meant to Design This

The Supreme Court ended its 2025–2026 term today, issuing a flurry of rulings on its most controversial cases. Most significantly, it rejected President Trump’s attempt to overturn birthright citizenship, preserving the 14th Amendment as it has been read for more than a century. It also struck down restrictions on how much political parties can spend in coordination with candidates — a change that could shape political strategies in November’s midterm election.

But I suspect that the year’s most important ruling for energy and climate policy came … yesterday. In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority allowed President Trump to fire the commissioners of independent agencies without cause. Although the case concerned the Federal Trade Commission, it will matter for every independent agency that governs energy and climate policy.

My colleague Matthew Zeitlin wrote about what the case will mean for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for instance, and I urge you to read his story. As he writes, the agency that governs the country’s power markets, transmission grid, and natural gas infrastructure has a culture of bipartisan consensus, even comity, and the ruling could chill that warmer clime. Last year, a cross-partisan group of 11 former FERC officials warned that allowing the president to fire commissioners “would bulldoze the structural supports that Congress built into” the agency to protect its power “from abuse.”

But FERC is not the only commission that governs climate and energy policy. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission — which Trump has also sought to bring to heel — is led by independent commissioners. So too are the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which the Biden administration tried (and largely failed) to turn into climate policy-making agencies.

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The independent commission is an old American legal structure, invented in the 19th century to manage issues where Congress deemed technical expertise and a deliberative process were essential to producing good policy. Although some guardrails for these agencies remain intact — such as requirements that a certain number of their commissioners come from each party — the court has permanently changed how they work. For instance, instead of having to wait for commissioners at FERC or the FTC to retire, step down, or serve out their terms, the president can now fire any or all of them and remake an independent commission almost as soon as they take office — assuming, at least, a cooperative Senate that is willing to confirm new appointees.

While reading about the ruling, I’ve found myself thinking back to an article written last year by the Georgetown Law professor Josh Chafetz. It concerns a little-known (or at least new to me) 1983 Supreme Court case, INS v. Chadha, that reshaped the relationship between Congress and the executive branch. For decades, Congress passed laws granting new powers to the president (or a federal agency) while retaining the ability to nullify those powers with a “legislative veto,” whereby one or both houses of Congress could cancel a given action with a simple majority vote.

In Chadha, the court ruled that the legislative veto was unconstitutional, a decision that affected hundreds of statutes, according to Chafetz. But crucially, the court did not cancel Congress’ grants of authority in those statutes; it only removed Congress’ ability to veto the use of that authority by a vote. In doing so, it ratcheted up the executive branch’s powers and diminished the legislative’s — “thereby leaving in place only one side of a bargain between Congress and the presidency,” Chafetz writes.

Why does this matter? Because the court is doing something similar again. Congress struck a bargain with the president when it set up commissions like FERC and the NRC: It granted new powers to the executive branch, but also placed important restrictions on how those powers can be used. In allowing the president to fire commissioners, the Supreme Court has altered the deal, preserving Congress’ grant of authority while removing any real restrictions on the president’s ability to use that authority. In doing so, it has overhauled how those agencies work, essentially creating a new and more potent version of FERC, or the NRC, or the FTC that wears the staff and authorities of the old one as a skin suit.

No legislator would have chosen to set up FERC, or the NRC, or the FTC as they now exist. But after the Supreme Court’s partial demo job yesterday, they are the agencies we have. The court has overhauled how the United States regulates electricity markets, or antitrust law, or nuclear safety regulation. Let’s pray, I suppose, that the Supreme Court doesn’t alter the deal any further.

I promised I wouldn’t write about Europe’s air conditioning adoption today, and I have kept my vow. But my colleague Jeva Lange — who just returned from a 10-day trip on the continent with her husband, her 9-month-old daughter, and her 69-year-old father — has written about it, and in the most delightful way. What was Europe actually like, as an (ew) American? Find out.