[Ilya Somin] Thoughts on the Oral Argument in the Oregon Case Against Trump's IEEPA Tariffs

But I will say that, as in the argument in our case on May 13, the judges seemed highly skeptical of the government's claim that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) gives the president virtually unlimited power to impose tariffs. In response to the government lawyer's assertion that the delegation of nearly boundless tariff authority was clear enough to satisfy the requirements of the major questions doctrine (a key issue in the case for reasons I describe here), Judge Restani said "[w]e're having a lot of argument for something that's clear" and that "It's not clear to everybody." In my view, if even one state is entitled to standing (as Oregon likely is, based on their direct importation), the same goes for the rest, based on the "standing for is standing for all" rule recently applied by the Supreme Court in Biden v. Nebraska (the red state lawsuit challenging Biden's student loan forgiveness program).

Author: Ilya Somin

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