Foley & Lardner LLP Partner Michael Tuteur is quoted in the Modern Healthcare article, “Supreme Court’s EPA Ruling Jeopardizes Healthcare Regulations,” about how the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision to cut back the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s authority to interpret laws creates legal uncertainty for industries like health care under the purview of other federal agencies.
Tuteur said that while “the decision does not explicitly affect health care policy, it could have ramifications for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department (HHS) and the entities it regulates.”
He continued, “The Supreme Court’s opinion rests on the ‘major questions’ doctrine. Essentially, courts can look at any regulation brought in front of it and decide whether the substance of the rule qualifies as a ‘major question’ over which Congress — not an agency — should have authority.”
The Supreme Court has recently been inconsistent on how to interpret this doctrine, and this “lack of clarity could spell trouble for health care organizations, which are highly regulated by HHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS),” Tuteur said.
