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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Grossel from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 2: It's been thirteen months in counting since the Tenth Circuit

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Speaker 2: heard oral arguments in a case over the president's executive

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Speaker 2: authority to protect or abolish US national monuments. This comes

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Speaker 2: as the White House is rolling back public lands protections.

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Speaker 2: The Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in September of twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty four in Garfield County versus Biden, a case plaintiffs

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Speaker 2: are aiming at the Supreme Court as they challenge the

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Speaker 2: president's executive power to block mining, oil and gas drilling,

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Speaker 2: and other developments under the Antiquities Act. In May, the

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Speaker 2: Trump Justice Department outlined a rationale for abolishing national monuments,

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Speaker 2: many of which have been declared by presidents to protect

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Speaker 2: large swaths of public land from development. But President Donald

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Speaker 2: Trump has been largely hostile to large national monuments. The

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Speaker 2: Interior Department, which manages most of the one hundred and

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Speaker 2: thirty eight national monuments, has been cutting staff, expanding mining,

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Speaker 2: oil drilling, and logging on federal lands, and is also

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Speaker 2: reviewing whether it can open national monuments to mining. My

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Speaker 2: guest is environmental law expert Pat Parento, a professor at

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Speaker 2: the Vermont Law and Graduate School, Pat tell us about

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Speaker 2: this case, Garfield County versus Biden, which is before the

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Speaker 2: Tenth Circuit.

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Speaker 3: So this is a challenge to President Biden's reinitiation of

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Speaker 3: a National monument designation for Bears Ears in Utah, Southern Utah.

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Speaker 3: It's over a million acres. It's one of the richest

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Speaker 3: archaeological and Native American cultural artifact pieces of property in

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Speaker 3: the entire United States. Are like five vibes who claimed

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Speaker 3: various you know, heritage and interests in this area. And

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Speaker 3: you know, it's another one of these designations under the

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Speaker 3: Antiquities Act, the nineteen six law. There have been one

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Speaker 3: hundred and fifty different designations by you know, Republican and

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Speaker 3: Democratic presidents over the years.

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Speaker 1: So this one is.

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Speaker 3: A challenge from the state of Utah challenging the Bears

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Speaker 3: Ears Monument. There's another related challenge to a monument in Colorado,

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Speaker 3: the Grand staircase Escalante National Monuments. So both of these

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Speaker 3: cases are working their way through the.

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Speaker 2: Courts, and the lower court ruled that the Antiquities Act

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Speaker 2: doesn't allow judicial review for monument designations.

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Speaker 1: Correct.

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Speaker 3: Basically, the lower court judge Utah Federal judge ruled that

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Speaker 3: the Antiquities Act is a delegation of authority to the

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Speaker 3: president that gives him complete discretion and leaves no role

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Speaker 3: for the courts to review actions that the president takes

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Speaker 3: under the Antiquities Act. And as we may talk, that

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Speaker 3: was the focus of the argument in the Tenth Circuit

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Speaker 3: Court of Appeals in September.

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Speaker 2: So are there other acts where it's been determined that

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Speaker 2: there can be no court review of what a president

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Speaker 2: or an agency does.

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Speaker 3: No. This is a doctrine in administrative law known as

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Speaker 3: committed to agency discretion or in this case, committed to

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Speaker 3: the president's discretion. And the Overton Park case is is

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Speaker 3: the seminal case on this doctrine, and it basically says

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Speaker 3: there's a presumption that you can review actions that federal

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Speaker 3: agencies take, except where there's quote no law to apply.

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Speaker 3: So that's one of the questions here is does the

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Speaker 3: Antiquities Act give the courts standards that they can use

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Speaker 3: to judge whether or not a president has exceeded his authority.

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Speaker 3: That's the claim that Utah is making that Biden had

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Speaker 3: no authority to designate something this large under the Antiquities Act,

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Speaker 3: And from what I've read about the oral argument in

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Speaker 3: the Tenth Circuit, it seems to me that the Court

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Speaker 3: is likely to rule that there's at least some limited

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Speaker 3: ability of courts to review presidential declarations like this, designations

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Speaker 3: like this. Exactly how the Court's going to come down

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Speaker 3: on that, and what it says to the lower court

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Speaker 3: if it sends this case back to the lower court,

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Speaker 3: what kind of guidance it gives the lower courts?

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Speaker 1: That I think is sort of where we are right now.

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Speaker 2: So, the Trump Justice Department in May declared that presidential

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Speaker 2: authority to create or abolish monuments is one of the

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Speaker 2: White House's most sweeping unilateral powers, and that a US

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Speaker 2: president has the power to create and undo national monuments

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Speaker 2: under the Antiquities Act. So that is a reversal of

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Speaker 2: a nineteen thirty eight Justice Department opinion.

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Speaker 1: Yes, that's true.

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Speaker 3: There was an Attorney General opinion from nineteen thirty eight

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Speaker 3: which basically said that, you know, presidents have the authority

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Speaker 3: to designate national monuments and very very broad authority to

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Speaker 3: do so without any real significant limitations on the president's authority.

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Speaker 3: And also this opinion said once a monument has been designated,

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Speaker 3: it's up to Congress to decide whether to rescind the

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Speaker 3: designation or reduce it or do something with it. But

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Speaker 3: you know, the Act doesn't explicitly say that subsequent presidents

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Speaker 3: like Trump in this case, have the authority to either

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Speaker 3: rescind altogether a designation, which this latest Justice Department opinion

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Speaker 3: is saying he does have that authority, or substantially reduce it.

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Speaker 3: I mean, over the years, presidents have and Congress has

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Speaker 3: reduced to some extent designations, but only in a very

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Speaker 3: minor way, you know, a few thousand acres, not millions

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Speaker 3: of acres. Right, So we are in a grade zone.

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Speaker 3: Sounds familiar, right, where Yeah, always the statute is far

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Speaker 3: from crystal clear on both whether subsequent presidents can completely

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Speaker 3: rescind a designation or cut it back substantially the way

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Speaker 3: Trump did in these two monument cases we're talking about.

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Speaker 3: In his first term, he reduced the Grand Staircase monument

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Speaker 3: by eighty five percent, and he reduced the Bear's Ears.

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Speaker 1: By forty five percent. So you know, we're in.

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Speaker 3: This area where the courts really are going to struggle

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Speaker 3: with coming up with a rule that says what exactly

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Speaker 3: can subsequent presidents do about prior designations, and how much

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Speaker 3: of that authority is really left to Congress. I mean,

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Speaker 3: these are public lands, after all, they're subject to Congress's

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Speaker 3: property authority under the property clause of the Constitution. So

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Speaker 3: there's a separation of powers argument in all of this,

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Speaker 3: which is, you know, once a designation has been made,

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Speaker 3: maybe the best argument is it's really up to Congress

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Speaker 3: to decide what to do about that, if it wants

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Speaker 3: to do something about that. And instead of having this

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Speaker 3: flip flop between presidents, it's in, it's out, some of

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Speaker 3: it's in, some of it's out.

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Speaker 1: I mean, that's really chaotic.

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Speaker 3: Right, So, if this case gets to the Supreme Court

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Speaker 3: and in, it might maybe not right now because the

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Speaker 3: current posture of the cases is on this question of

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Speaker 3: do the courts.

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Speaker 1: Have any authority at all to review it?

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Speaker 3: But assuming the case does get to the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 3: I would predict that separation of powers will be a

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Speaker 3: central focus for the court.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Chief Justice John Roberts in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 2: in a case called Massachusetts Lobsterman's Association versus Ramundo, sort

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Speaker 2: of issued an invite to challenge the scope of presidential

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Speaker 2: power under the Antiquities Act. He said, its use has

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Speaker 2: been transformed into a power without any discernible limit to

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Speaker 2: set aside vast and amorphous expanses of terrain.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's got a lot of people worry. It was

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Speaker 3: what we call dictum, right, And in fact, in that

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Speaker 3: Lobsterman case, the court denied review and said we're not

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Speaker 3: going to review President Obama's designation of two monuments off

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Speaker 3: the Eastern United States Seamounts and Canyons Monument. So it

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Speaker 3: was dictum. It was not part of the holding. It

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Speaker 3: wasn't the ruling at all. But every time a justice

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Speaker 3: says something raises a question, that gets a lot of

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Speaker 3: people thinking, Okay, well, perhaps Chief Justice Roberts is concerned

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Speaker 3: about this expansive authority that the president is issuing. But

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Speaker 3: on the other hand, what we're seeing from this particular

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Speaker 3: Supreme Court, if anything, is allowing the president to assert

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Speaker 3: all kinds of executive authority under this unitary executive doctrine.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 3: So this is going to be an interesting issue if

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Speaker 3: and when it does get to the Supreme Court. You know,

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Speaker 3: will Chief Justice Roberts believe that the enti equities act

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Speaker 3: is is too.

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Speaker 1: Broad a delegation in some respect. We don't know.

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Speaker 3: It's too early to say, but he certainly has flagged

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Speaker 3: the issue, and Utah is relying very heavily on that

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Speaker 3: statement from Chief Justice Roberts.

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Speaker 2: But in March of last year, the Supreme Court had

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Speaker 2: a chance to diminish the president's power to establish new

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Speaker 2: national monuments right in a pair of cases, but they

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Speaker 2: didn't take it.

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 3: That case is kind of unusual because it dealt with

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Speaker 3: another federal statute in Oregon. And if we can recall,

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Speaker 3: when the railroads were being built across the western United States,

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Speaker 3: the Congress said to you know, Union Pacific and other railroads,

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Speaker 3: if you build these these lines that we need, we're

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Speaker 3: going to give you every other section of public land

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Speaker 3: as an inducement to make the capital investment in these

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Speaker 3: rail lines.

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Speaker 1: Right. So there was a.

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Speaker 3: Statute in that actually said some of the lands that

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Speaker 3: were designated in the monument were actually authorized by Congress

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Speaker 3: to be logged timbered for timber companies. And it was

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Speaker 3: the timber companies who were arguing to the Supreme Court

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Speaker 3: the President is exceeding his authority to designate these lands

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Speaker 3: as a monument when Congress has.

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Speaker 1: Already said they should be logged. Right.

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Speaker 3: So the Court did not take that case. And certainly,

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Speaker 3: if Justice Roberts was keen on taking a case to

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Speaker 3: review the authority under the Antiquities Act, that might have

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Speaker 3: been a case to do that. It wasn't a clear

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Speaker 3: issue for the Antiquities Act though, because of the fact

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Speaker 3: that this other statute was involved, and it might have

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Speaker 3: been more a question of is there really a conflict

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Speaker 3: between the Antiquities Act and this other statute or not. Ultimately,

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Speaker 3: the Court declined to review it, and Roberts didn't file

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Speaker 3: any kind of dissent or opinion saying we should have

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Speaker 3: taken it. Both Gorsich and Kavanaugh did say that we

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Speaker 3: think the Court should take this case, but probably because

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Speaker 3: of this potential conflict between these statutes, not so much

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Speaker 3: the pure question of does the Antiquities Act give the

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Speaker 3: President broad authority to set aside literally millions of acres

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Speaker 3: of public land. That remains to be seen whether that

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Speaker 3: issue gets to the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 2: Coming up next on the Bloomberg Law Show, I'll continue

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Speaker 2: this conversation with Professor Pat Parento of the Vermont Law

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Speaker 2: and Graduate School so what's taking the Tenth Circuit so long?

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Speaker 2: I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg. The Antiquities

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Speaker 2: Act is a law passed in nineteen oh six that

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Speaker 2: authorizes the president to proclaim national monuments on federal lands

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Speaker 2: to protect significant natural history or scientific features. Presidents have

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Speaker 2: used the Act more than one hundred times to create

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Speaker 2: national monuments, from the Grand Canyon to the Statue of Liberty.

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Speaker 2: A case before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals is

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Speaker 2: challenging the president's executive authority to protect or abolish national

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Speaker 2: monuments under the Antiquities Act. The State of Utah is

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Speaker 2: challenging the legal basis for Utah's Grand Staircase, Escalante and

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Speaker 2: Bare Ears, national monuments created by former Presidents Bill Clinton

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Speaker 2: and Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act. President Trump shrank

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Speaker 2: both monuments in twenty seventeen, and then former President Joe

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Speaker 2: Biden expanded them to roughly their original boundaries. I've been

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Speaker 2: talking to environmental law professor Pat Parento of the Vermont

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Speaker 2: Law and Graduate School, So Pat. The Tenth Circuit heard

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Speaker 2: oral arguments in this case last year. In September twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty four, They apparently have the lowest number of pending

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Speaker 2: cases of all the US appeals courts and claims on

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Speaker 2: the website, it has one of the fastest turnaround times

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Speaker 2: of any federal circuit court. But in this case, it's

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Speaker 2: been thirteen months and still no opinion. Is that unheard of?

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Speaker 3: Not unheard of, but very unusual for the Tenth Circuit. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: it's one of the more efficient courts. It's Justice Gorsuch's

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Speaker 3: former court where he was many years on the Tenth Circuit.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, there's a lot of speculation about why is

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Speaker 3: the court taking so long? As they say this was

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Speaker 3: a procedural question, I mean, an important one, but still

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Speaker 3: a technical question of you know, do the court have

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Speaker 3: any authority at all to review designations of national monuments?

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Speaker 3: And so some speculation is, well, there's probably a descent.

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Speaker 3: It's a three judge panel, I forget exactly the makeup

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Speaker 3: of who the appointees are.

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Speaker 1: I think there may be a Trump appointee on the panel.

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Speaker 3: And so one theory is, well, there's probably a descent,

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Speaker 3: that always a longer period of time. Another is that

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Speaker 3: the court is wrestling with should it just reman the

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Speaker 3: case to the district Court with some instructions that yeah,

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Speaker 3: you have a role to play, but it's limited in

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Speaker 3: some way. Or is the court thinking, you know what,

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Speaker 3: maybe we should tackle the real question, the substantive question

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Speaker 3: of what authority.

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Speaker 1: The president has.

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Speaker 3: It was clear from the oral argument that the court

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Speaker 3: that panel understands everybody in Utah in particular, wants this

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Speaker 3: case to go to the Supreme Court. They're counting, you know, again,

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Speaker 3: on what Justice Roberts has said as maybe an indication

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Speaker 3: they could win in the Supreme Court on the limitation

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Speaker 3: on the president's authority. So, I don't know, it's too

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Speaker 3: hard to predict what's taking them this long.

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Speaker 1: I would guess that we're probably.

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Speaker 3: Going to see a decision certainly this year, in the

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Speaker 3: next month or so. Oh yeah, you'd like to think

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Speaker 3: so maybe a Christmas president of it might be a

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Speaker 3: lump of coal and somebody's stocking.

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Speaker 2: The Justice Department outlined a rationale for abolishing national monuments.

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Speaker 2: I mean, is there any doubt that Trump is going

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Speaker 2: to try to maybe not abolish, but certainly cut back

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Speaker 2: on monuments, And I mean he wants to use the

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Speaker 2: land for what oil and gas drilling or something.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's not a whole lot of oil and gas

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Speaker 3: in bears Ears, there is uranium, and he has made

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Speaker 3: us you know, resuscitating the nuclear industry as one of

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Speaker 3: his goals, and other minerals. You know, if once you

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Speaker 3: get in there and start poking around, you could probably

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Speaker 3: find other copper or other minerals.

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Speaker 1: Right that have some value.

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Speaker 3: So, yeah, Trump is not going to live with you know,

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Speaker 3: huge set asides of millions of acres of land that

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Speaker 3: has mineral value in it, that's for sure. So at

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Speaker 3: a minimum, he's going to look at these designations and

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Speaker 3: ask his friends in the industry, and of course Republican

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Speaker 3: governor of Utah, what do you want in these areas

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Speaker 3: and we will make sure that we don't set those aside.

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Speaker 3: That's probably what we could expect from this administration. Not

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Speaker 3: an outright repeal, although you know maybe I wouldn't think so.

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Speaker 1: I would think it would be more of carve.

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Speaker 3: Them down, way way down, and make sure that you've

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Speaker 3: excluded any mineral areas of the designations from being set aside.

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Speaker 2: I mean, what do you think about the Antiquities Act?

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Speaker 2: Does it give too much power to presidents?

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Speaker 3: Gives a lot of power for sure, you know, when

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Speaker 3: you think about it, some of the iconic national parks

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Speaker 3: in the United States. Grand Canyon was one of the

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Speaker 3: first areas to be designated a monument. There were plans

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Speaker 3: to build mines in the Grand Canyon at one point,

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Speaker 3: even a dam in the Grand Canyon. Zion, Teton Acadia.

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Speaker 3: You know, these are some of the most popular national

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Speaker 3: park in the country. They all began as national monuments.

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Speaker 3: So and again it's presidents of both political parties. Eisenhower

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Speaker 3: did it, George W.

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Speaker 1: Bush did it. Even Herbert Hoover did it.

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Speaker 3: Right, So a lot of our public lands heritage is

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Speaker 3: attributable to the Antiquities Act. It's been incredibly important for

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Speaker 3: preserving our natural heritage.

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Speaker 1: So there's that.

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Speaker 3: But then there's also the question of it's a very

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Speaker 3: short statute. I mean, it's like three sentences and there's

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Speaker 3: not a lot of you know, guidance I guess on

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Speaker 3: either what should be designated. You know, it refers to

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Speaker 3: things like objects of historic or scientific interest.

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Speaker 1: Well, that's pretty darn broad.

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Speaker 3: It also says that the designations quote shall be confined

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Speaker 3: to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management

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Speaker 3: of the objects to be protected. That's some of the

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Speaker 3: language that Utaw and others that oppose broad authority under

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Speaker 3: the Antiquities Actor citing to the courts and saying, look,

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Speaker 3: look here, you know, you don't get a million acre

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Speaker 3: designation when you're trying to protect the smallest area of

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Speaker 3: specific objects and so forth. So lots of room I

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Speaker 3: think to argue about should this statute be updated and

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Speaker 3: refined in certain ways? Again, Congress is perfectly capable of

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Speaker 3: doing whatever they want with public lands, and there would

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Speaker 3: be no ability of the courts to do anything else.

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Speaker 3: You know, Congress's power over public land is plenary. It's

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Speaker 3: unreviewable by the courts. The Supreme Court has said that

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Speaker 3: in Missouri versus Holland. So in lots of ways you

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Speaker 3: can argue what's good public policy with these lands? Should

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Speaker 3: there be a little bit more guidance from Congress, which

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Speaker 3: is the body that's responsible for stewardship of these lands. Ultimately, yeah,

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Speaker 3: there's good arguments, I'm sure both ways. But one thing

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Speaker 3: that's really clear is without the Antiquities Act, a lot

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Speaker 3: of really precious areas of the United States would have

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Speaker 3: been lost before now.

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Speaker 2: And pat when I was researching this case, I found

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Speaker 2: something interesting a little off topic, but in the case

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Speaker 2: Utah versus United States, the State of Utah asserts that

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Speaker 2: the federal government, which owns nearly seventy percent of Utah,

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Speaker 2: lacks constitutional authority to retain much of that land. But

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Speaker 2: the Supreme Court denied a motion for leave to file

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Speaker 2: a bill of complaint under the court's original jurisdiction. Seventy

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Speaker 2: percent of Utah by the federal government.

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Speaker 3: Yeah right, I mean, it's like, give us your money

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Speaker 3: and stay out of the way. Give us these lands

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Speaker 3: to use as we like, and don't put any restrictions

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Speaker 3: on them. You know, it's a challenge for sure when

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Speaker 3: seventy percent of your state is governed by the federal government.

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Speaker 3: But if you look at what's happening on the ground

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Speaker 3: in Utah, there's an enormous amount of public lands being

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Speaker 3: developed for oil and gas, for mineral development, for water

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Speaker 3: rights and water use. So, you know, is the fact

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Speaker 3: that there's a lot of federal land in Utah crippling

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Speaker 3: the Utah economy. You can't make that case. Really, these

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Speaker 3: national parks that began as national monuments again, just think

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Speaker 3: about it, Zion National Park, Arches, canyon lands, you know,

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Speaker 3: these national parks are huge economic.

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Speaker 1: Assets for the state of Utah.

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Speaker 3: Four of the five top national parks in Utah began

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Speaker 3: as national monuments. So it's really I think I'd have

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Speaker 3: to say hypocritical for Utah to say, you know, these

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Speaker 3: national monuments and national parks are a big drain on

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Speaker 3: our economy.

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Speaker 1: It just isn't true.

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Speaker 2: We'll keep watching to see when the decision finally comes down.

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Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Pat. That's professor Pat Parento of the

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Speaker 2: Vermont Law and Graduate School. Up to forty two million

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Speaker 2: Americans didn't receive their SNAP benefits on the first of

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Speaker 2: the month, but the Trump administration told a federal judge

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Speaker 2: today that it will comply with a court order to

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Speaker 2: fund US food aid benefits for November during the government shutdown,

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Speaker 2: but only at fifty percent of the amount that eligible

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Speaker 2: households normally receive. This follows back to back rulings from

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Speaker 2: judges in Boston and Rhode Island who found that the

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Speaker 2: Trump administration likely violated US law in suspending SNAP during

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Speaker 2: the government shutdown. Joining me is constitutional law professor Harold

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Speaker 2: Krant of the Chicago Kent College of Law, how to judges.

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Speaker 2: Judge John McConnell in Rhode Island and Judge Indira Talwani

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Speaker 2: in Boston, almost at the same time that Trump administration

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Speaker 2: officials likely violated the law when suspending SNAP during the

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Speaker 2: government shutdown. Tell us a little about those opinions.

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Speaker 4: Rulings are relatively similar. They require, first of all, that

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Speaker 4: conditional funds supplemental funds be used to pay as much

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Speaker 4: of the benefits for the next month as possible. And indeed,

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Speaker 4: Congress set up a contingency fund and funded it two

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Speaker 4: years in a row, three billion dollars each year. So

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Speaker 4: there's six billion dollars in contingency funds that are ready

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Speaker 4: to be spent. And the Trump administration have said, we

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Speaker 4: have no legal authority to spend contingency funds because Congress

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Speaker 4: hasn't funded the program for the next fiscal year, which

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Speaker 4: is a non secutor. And the court said, what are

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Speaker 4: you talking about. That's why Congress created a contingency fund.

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Speaker 4: And so I think that the courts both are on

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Speaker 4: very strong ground and saying that contingency funds at the

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Speaker 4: minimum have to be expended against six billion dollars, not

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Speaker 4: everything for the first month, but three quarters roughly. And

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Speaker 4: so the Trump administration will use the six billion dollars

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Speaker 4: to at least pay part of next month's SNAP benefits,

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Speaker 4: which are due.

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Speaker 2: Judge McConnell also said that government had to determine if

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Speaker 2: it can supplement that limited contingency pool of money with

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Speaker 2: another fund that includes customs receipts.

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Speaker 4: Congress has created a kind of slush fund, if you will,

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Speaker 4: from tri fees that can be used in emergencies, and

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Speaker 4: the Department of Agriculture has used that sort of slush

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Speaker 4: fund in the past to pay for other food programs,

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Speaker 4: such as the Women's Infant and Children Program or the

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Speaker 4: Whig program.

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Speaker 2: So the Trump administration has agreed to fund the benefits

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Speaker 2: in November up to the full amount of the SNAP

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Speaker 2: contingency funds. So that's fifty percent of the amount that

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Speaker 2: eligible households normally receive. Does that comply with the court's orders?

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Speaker 4: They are complying with the judges order. That the Trump

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Speaker 4: administration is complying with the judge's order. The judgment discretionary

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Speaker 4: as to whether the federal government has to dip into

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Speaker 4: other discretionary pots of money to cover the shortfall in

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Speaker 4: the program. So the real only other issue that I

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Speaker 4: can think of is that claimants could say that they

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Speaker 4: have an entitlement under the due process clause to receive

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Speaker 4: the money because the government has committed themselves to paying

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Speaker 4: SNAP benefits.

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Speaker 1: I don't think that.

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Speaker 4: Entitlement argument would work because it's probably contingent upon there

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Speaker 4: being sufficient money, So I think that that would end

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Speaker 4: up being somewhat circular. So for now, the Trump administration

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Speaker 4: has declined to open up discretiony moneies to fill the

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Speaker 4: shortfall in the staff program. So people are going to

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Speaker 4: have to scramble and hope that money can come from

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Speaker 4: food banks from states and other places.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so, according to what the administrations said, they thought

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Speaker 2: it was an unacceptable solution to use the child Nutrition Funds,

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Speaker 2: which provide free school meals to about twenty nine million

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Speaker 2: low income students, to shift that money to SNAP. Certainly

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Speaker 2: a hard decision to make.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember there's head Start, There's women, infants, and

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Speaker 4: children nutrition programs, lots of programs that say shortfalls now

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Speaker 4: because of the funding did and so the top administration

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Speaker 4: does have decide how to prioritize. But at least they'll

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Speaker 4: be helping this first trash, if you will, by helping

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Speaker 4: to pay what was in the contingency fund between five

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Speaker 4: and six billion dollars.

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Speaker 2: So were the court cases basically over, then.

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Speaker 4: Probably, I mean, the court may maintain jurisdiction of it

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Speaker 4: to make sure that Prisent Trump's follows through with respect

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Speaker 4: to the commitment to use a contingency fund. Also, plainists

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Speaker 4: may add different claims in an effort to try to

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Speaker 4: force the government to divert more money into the SNAP program,

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Speaker 4: But that remains to be seen, and.

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Speaker 2: There's a question of when people are going to get

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Speaker 2: these benefits. The Department of Agriculture warned that it could

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Speaker 2: take some states anywhere from a few weeks up to

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Speaker 2: several months to recalculate household benefit amounts and implement the

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Speaker 2: partial payment, because states determine who's eligible for the program

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Speaker 2: and then facilitate making the federal funds available each month

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Speaker 2: on benefits cards that function like bank debit cards.

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Speaker 4: I should know that the government faces a huge issue

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Speaker 4: of trying to decide how to allocate SNAP funding of

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Speaker 4: it's not one hundred percent funded because all the mechanisms

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Speaker 4: in terms of electronic transfers and so forth, are set

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Speaker 4: up and structured so that with a certain amount of

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Speaker 4: money in mind. So they would face a bureaucratic issue

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Speaker 4: about how to adjust for that. Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 4: now states are trying to react and dip into other

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Speaker 4: kind of fund to try to supplement whatever amounts of

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Speaker 4: money is missing or at least two covered in the

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Speaker 4: interim until these payments can.

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Speaker 1: Be strained out.

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Speaker 4: I mean, this whole thing is obviously part of the shutdown,

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00:28:13,240 --> 00:28:17,159
Speaker 4: but the congressional enactment of the Contingency Fund should have

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Speaker 4: created this a much more smooth runway in order to

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Speaker 4: ensure that people were still funded pending the results of

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Speaker 4: the negotiation that we reopening the government.

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Speaker 2: Is SNAP funding a political issue because President Trump, responding

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Speaker 2: to questions during one of his flights, said that it's

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Speaker 2: mostly Democrats who rely on SNAP.

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Speaker 4: There are forty million people in this country who rely

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Speaker 4: upon SNAP funding.

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Speaker 1: It's to find.

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Speaker 4: I believe it's one hundred and thirty five percent of

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Speaker 4: the poverty line. And so this is the elderly veterans,

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00:28:52,240 --> 00:28:54,160
Speaker 4: as well as people that have low paying jobs, as

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Speaker 4: well as people are unemployed, are all entitled to SNAP benefits.

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Speaker 4: So this cuts across a lowish segment of the population.

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Speaker 1: And I think.

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Speaker 4: Republican governors are quite worried about people in their own states.

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Speaker 2: Talking about the government shutdown. Federal courts are scaling back

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Speaker 2: operations after exhausting reserve funds during the government's shutdown, but

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Speaker 2: dozens of fights over Trump's controversial policies are moving forward

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Speaker 2: after judges have denied the Justice Department's request to extend

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Speaker 2: deadlines in several cases. We can obviously see that in

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Speaker 2: the cases that we've been talking about involving snap benefits,

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Speaker 2: and it's not just the cases that involve the government shutdown.

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Speaker 2: For example, a Washington judge handling a suit challenging Trump's

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Speaker 2: plan to impose one hundred thousand dollars fee for foreign workers'

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Speaker 2: visas wrote that the government couldn't use the shutdown to

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Speaker 2: avoid meaningful judicial review of employer's time sensitive concerns. She

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Speaker 2: not only refused to pause the deadline, but she put

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Speaker 2: the case on an expedited track.

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Speaker 4: Well, I mean the courts have a decision to make

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Speaker 4: about whether to shut down or not, or court which

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00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 4: cases are more important. Obviously, criminal cases are usually more

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Speaker 4: important than civil. But the courts are also determining that

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Speaker 4: these high stakes litigation with the Trump administration affects so

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Speaker 4: many people in so many ways, as our discussion of

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Speaker 4: the snap of benefits suggest that they're going to prioritize

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Speaker 4: the Trump administration litigation in addition to the criminal cases.

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Speaker 1: The Department of Justice.

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Speaker 4: Attorneys aren't getting paid, court personnel are not getting paid,

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Speaker 4: but the court's business continues.

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Speaker 2: The judges get paid, don't they.

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Speaker 1: Judges have to.

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Speaker 4: Get paid because of the constitutional protection for compensation.

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Speaker 2: Advantage the federal judiciary. There, thanks so much. How that's

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Speaker 2: Professor Harold Krant of the Chicago Kent College of Law.

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Speaker 2: And that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show.

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Speaker 2: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on

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00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:06,840
Speaker 2: our Bloomberg Law podcasts. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

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00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 2: and at www dot Bloomberg dot com, slash podcast, Slash Law,

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00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 2: And remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law Show every

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00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 2: weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm June Grosso

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00:31:19,120 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 2: and you're listening to Bloomberg