The Supreme Court Keeps Making It Easier For Corporations to Bend the Law In Their Favor - Balls and Strikes [View all]

[In It to Win It]

Balls and Strikes

Each Supreme Court term tends to be defined by a handful of high-profile rulings on the nation’s most divisive legal and cultural issues. This term was no different: decisions about gun control, trans health care, LGBTQ-inclusive education, and yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act dominated headlines and end-of-term recaps.

Equally consequential—yet largely ignored—are the Court’s rulings on procedural issues. Technical-sounding opinions on standing, venue, and jurisdiction rarely trend on social media, but quietly transform the structure of the legal system. Through these decisions, the Court determines who gets access to justice, who gets shut out, and who ultimately holds power.

Two cases decided this past summer—Diamond Alternative Energy v. Environmental Protection Agency and Food and Drug Administration v. R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company—offer clear examples of this dynamic. On the surface, these cases appear to turn on technical procedural questions. But they signal a deeper shift: The Court continues to lower barriers to the justice system for powerful, well-funded litigants, while maintaining those same barriers for individuals seeking to defend their civil rights, communities trying to combat voter suppression, and public interest organizations fighting for systemic change. The result is a legal system structured to protect the interests of big industry and corporations, while workers, consumers, and vulnerable communities face hurdles that only grow more daunting.

In Diamond Alternative Energy v. EPA, a group of petrochemical companies and producers of gasoline and ethanol challenged California state regulations, approved by the EPA, that required automakers to limit greenhouse gas emissions by, in part, requiring that a certain percentage of vehicles produced between 2017 and 2025 be electric. However, the question before the Court had nothing to do with the constitutionality of the regulations, or even the authority of California or the EPA to impose them under the Clean Air Act. The question for the justices was more basic: Did the fuel producers have the right to bring their lawsuit in the first place?

Just as important as the substantive questions the justices answer is the people whose questions they are willing to listen to in the first place.

— Balls & Strikes (@ballsandstrikes.org) 2025-08-13T14:05:07.586Z