Environmental Law after Sebelius: Will the Court's New Spending Power Limits Affect Environmental State-Federal Partnerships?

20 Pages Posted: 12 Aug 2014 Last revised: 11 Aug 2016

See all articles by Erin Ryan

Erin Ryan

Florida State University, College of Law

Date Written: October 1, 2013

Abstract

This issue brief, invited by the American Constitution Society, analyzes the regulatory impacts of the new spending power doctrine in the Supreme Court’s 2012 health reform decision, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius.

In Sebelius, a plurality of the Supreme Court held that portions of the Affordable Care Act exceeded federal authority under the Spending Clause. With that holding, Sebelius became the first Supreme Court decision since the New Deal to limit an act of Congress on spending power grounds, rounding out the “New Federalism” limits on federal power first initiated by the Rehnquist Court in the 1990s.

The new Sebelius doctrine constrains the federal spending power in contexts involving changes to ongoing intergovernmental partnerships with very large federal grants. However, the decision gives little direction for evaluating when the amount of change or funding reaches the threshold of spending power coercion. Sebelius thus leaves open important unanswered questions about the contours of the new limit and how it will impact intergovernmental bargaining.

This issue brief analyzes the new spending power doctrine and its impact on spending power-based programs of cooperative federalism in environmental law, with special attention to the Clean Air Act. It became the basis for a more expansive law review article, The Spending Power and Environmental Law After Sebelius, 85 Colo. L. Rev. 1003 (2014), which is also available here http://ssrn.com/abstract= 2378675.

Keywords: National Federation of Independent Businesses, Sebelius, spending power, intergovernmental bargaining, state-federal bargaining, federalism, environmental law, Clean Air Act, highway fund penalties, environmental federalism, Clean Water Act State Fund, Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund

Suggested Citation

Ryan, Erin, Environmental Law after Sebelius: Will the Court's New Spending Power Limits Affect Environmental State-Federal Partnerships? (October 1, 2013). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2479110 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2479110

Erin Ryan (Contact Author)

Florida State University, College of Law ( email )

425 W. Jefferson Street
Tallahassee, FL 32306
United States

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