WASHINGTON – This week, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Ron Wyden (D-OR), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee, and Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-08), Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Gregory W. Meeks (D-NY-05), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Joe Neguse (D-CO-02), Chair of the House Democrats’ Litigation Task Force, Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08), Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, and Richard E. Neal (D-MA-01), Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee, led 29 Senators and 162 Representatives in filing an amicus brief in a key case, Oregon, et al., v. Trump, et al., challenging the Trump Administration’s abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs. The brief opposes the Administration’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to levy sweeping tariffs as IEEPA is not a tariff statute.
In June, Senators Shaheen, Wyden and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Democratic Leader, led 33 Senators in filing an amicus brief at an earlier stage of this case urging the immediate suspension of the tariffs imposed under IEEPA. However, the Federal Circuit declined to suspend the illegal tariffs while it considers the merits of the appeal.
“The President’s reckless tariff agenda has caused economic chaos and raised prices for families and businesses across the country at a moment in which the cost of living is far too high. The Trump Administration’s unlawful abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs ignores that he does not have the authority to unilaterally impose the largest tax increase in decades on Americans,” said Senator Shaheen. “This brief makes clear that IEEPA cannot be used to impose tariffs. We will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to push back against the Administration’s effort to tax goods American households and small businesses rely on.”
“This isn’t a close call – IEEPA doesn’t give the president ANY tariff authority, let alone the power to slap sweeping tariffs on products from almost every country on earth,” said Senator Wyden. “The courts should strike down Trump’s illegal tariffs, which are hiking prices for American families and threatening American jobs.”
“IEEPA contains none of the hallmarks of legislation delegating tariff power to the executive such as limitations tied to specific products or countries, caps on the amount of tariff increases, procedural safeguards, public input, collaboration with Congress, or time limitations,” wrote the lawmakers. “In the five decades since IEEPA’s enactment, no President from either party, aside from the current President, has ever claimed that IEEPA conferred any authority to impose tariffs.”
“Unmoored from the structural safeguards Congress built into actual tariff statutes, the President’s unlawful 'emergency' tariffs under IEEPA have led to chaos and uncertainty,” continued the lawmakers.
"This is dysregulation, not delegation,” concluded the lawmakers. “The President’s actions are not consistent with the lawful power Congress granted in IEEPA in 1977 nor America’s constitutional structure. If the President believes that imposing, removing, or amending tariffs are an appropriate policy measure, Congress has given him tools to pursue those goals. But IEEPA is not one of them. This Court should affirm the CIT’s judgment and hold that IEEPA does not authorize tariffs.”
You can read the full amicus brief HERE.
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