Supreme Court lets a truck stop sue the Federal Reserve in latest threat to agency regulations

The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit by a North Dakota truck stop that is challenging the fees banks can charge for debit-card transactions in a ruling that could have deeper implications for other government regulations.

The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit by a North Dakota truck stop that is challenging the fees banks can charge for debit-card transactions in a ruling that could have deeper implications for other government regulations. The decision was the latest from the Supreme Court this term that would make it easier for industries to challenge what conservative critics describe as the “administrative state.” “Today’s ruling is especially significant in light of Friday’s decision overruling Chevron, because it means that even old agency rules can be challenged anew so long as they produce any contemporary harm,” said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “In other words, even understandings of agency authority that are a half-century old can now be challenged on the ground that some recent agency action, however minor, has injured a plaintiff, ” Vladeck added. “Given how much Friday’s ruling in Loper Bright destabilizes administrative law, today’s ruling applies that destabilization retroactively.” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion for a 6-3 majority, with the liberal justices in dissent. The truck stop, Corner Post, is fighting a 2011 Federal Reserve rule that capped “interchange fees” at 21 cents per transaction plus a small percentage of that transaction’s value. Retail stores have long chafed at those fees.