As the legal landscape continues to evolve, the Supreme Court has scheduled its February 2024 argument calendar, which will include a pair of challenges targeting controversial social media laws in Texas and Florida, as well as a dispute over whether the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) plan to reduce ozone levels should be frozen.
Over five days, the justices will hear 10 hours of oral argument between February 20 and 28. Central to the session are the cases NetChoice LLC v. Paxton and Moody v. NetChoice LLC, which addresses laws introduced in 2021 that attempt to regulate large social media companies’ control over content on their sites.
Following the implementation of these laws, both Texas and Florida have sought to counter allegations of censorship aimed predominantly at users with conservative views. However, these social media conglomerates argue that the laws infringe on their First Amendment rights to curate their platform’s speech.
Also featured in the session is the dispute over the EPA’s plan to reduce ozone levels, informally known as the Good Neighbor Plan. This case arrived on the docket through emergency appeals, also known as the “shadow” docket. After a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit refused the halt of the plan while challenges continued in lower courts, objecting states and impacted industries and businesses appealed to the Supreme Court.
Moreover, the justices will consider other impactful cases throughout February. Among these are challenges concerning the statute of limitations regarding actions taken by federal agencies, the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act’s exemption for employment contracts, the recovery of damages in copyright lawsuits, the ability for district courts to issue criminal forfeiture orders, the application of state escrow-interest laws to national banks, the legality of “bump stock” attachments on semi-automatic rifles, and the role of arbitration agreements and subsequent contracts in determining arbitration duties.
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.