The U.S. Supreme Court starts the term's second-to-last argument cycle on Monday but first it must wade through a list of pending petitions marked by controversies involving the death penalty, the behavior of ACLU lawyers in an abortion case, an unusual cy pres settlement, and the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

For federal regulatory diehards, the justices also are being asked to grant review in a head-on challenge to so-called “Auer” deference—the judicial doctrine in which courts defer to an agency's interpretation of an ambiguous regulation. The business community favors review.

The Supreme Court in mid-January passed the usual cutoff point for adding cases to the current term's argument docket. Any cases granted review from the justices' March 16 conference likely would be heard in the October 2018 term.