A three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals handed President Trump a major victory on Friday, ruling that he does, in fact, possess the power to downsize a prominent regulatory agency.
In its 2-1 decision, the panel’s majority revoked a temporary injunction issued in March by Obama-appointed District Judge Amy Berman Jackson. That edict attempted to stop the president from making significant layoffs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and prevent Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought from “defunding the agency,” according to Newsweek.
As described by The Heritage Foundation, the CFPB was created by Congress more than a decade ago “under Title X of Dodd–Frank to ‘regulate the offering and provision of consumer financial products or services under the Federal consumer financial laws.’” Rather than “simply consolidating regulatory authority,” the think tank noted, “Congress granted the new agency unparalleled rulemaking, supervisory, and enforcement powers over virtually every consumer financial product and service.”
Writing for the majority, D.C. Circuit Judge Gregory Katsas, a Trump appointee, found that in issuing her injunction, Jackson “lacked jurisdiction to consider the claims” made by plaintiffs that were “predicated on loss of employment.” These claims, Katsas noted, “must proceed through the specialized-review scheme established in the Civil Service Reform Act.”
“And the other plaintiffs’ claims target neither final agency action reviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act nor unconstitutional action reviewable in equity. Accordingly, we vacate the preliminary injunction,” Katsas wrote.
The Trump appointee notably discussed litigants’ abuse of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) — a statute which The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland previously noted has often been used by left-wing plaintiffs in their lawfare against the Trump administration. More specifically, Katsas noted how the APA “cabins the timing, focus, and intensiveness of judicial review of federal agency action,” and requires the “plaintiff to target specific agency action that has caused him an injury.”
“[The APA] requires that action to be final, ripe for review, and discrete. And it does not permit the courts to superintend how an agency carries out its broad statutory responsibilities,” he wrote.
Judge Cornelia Pillard, an Obama appointee, dissented from the majority decision. In disagreeing with her colleagues, she wrote, “It is emphatically not within the discretion of the President or his appointees to decide that the country would benefit most if there were no Bureau at all.”
Not long after the panel’s ruling, plaintiffs filed an emergency application with the entire D.C. Circuit (“en banc court”) seeking to bar the panel’s decision from taking effect.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
