Try, Try Again

Noted conservative lawyer C. Boyden Gray has been fighting against the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act almost from the moment it was enacted in July 2010. But his fight against the principles enshrined in the law goes back nearly two decades.

In 1996 Gray, then a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, marshaled opposition to several Environmental Protection Agency regulations relating to the Clean Air Act. Arguing that the CAA violated the nondelegation doctrine, which forbids one branch of government from ceding its authority to another, Gray believed the law was unconstitutional because it gave the EPA too much discretion and power. He cochaired the Air Quality Standards Coalition, an advocacy group representing hundreds of businesses—including oil and automotive companies—that was dedicated to getting the EPA regulations invalidated. During the legal challenge to the EPA rules, he wrote an amicus brief encouraging the U.S. Supreme Court to take a broad view of the nondelegation doctrine. His efforts, however, came up short when the Supreme Court ruled the act was ­constitutional.