TikTok, Gun, Clean Air Act Cases Top Supreme Court’s 2025 Docket

Guns, free speech, and environmental policy are at the center of consequential cases awaiting the US Supreme Court this year.

And while the justices’ docket lacks the cultural blockbusters of recent terms, the cases slated for argument in 2025 will have major impacts.

Here are some of the cases to watch.

TikTok Ban

The justices added a new argument day at the beginning of its January sitting to consider TikTok’s emergency request regarding an upcoming federal ban on the social media platform. The law, which is set to take effect Jan. 19, would effectively bar some 170 million US users from using the app unless it’s sold by its Chinese parent company, ByteDance Ltd.

The US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit upheld the law, citing national security risks related to China’s potential influence over the platform.

Tiktok and several social media users filed emergency requests asking the justices to weigh in on what they call “a massive and unprecedented speech restriction.” The court agreed to do so Dec. 18 and arguments are scheduled for Jan. 10.

Free Speech

The justices will hear another free speech case Jan. 15, Free Speech Coalition, Inc. v. Paxton. The case involves a 2023 Texas law, known as H.B. 1181, that requires websites with a certain amount of adult content to verify the age of every user.

The law is intended to protect minors from potentially harmful materials.

The state’s brief highlights the significant health and social ramifications of exposure to such materials at a young age, including depression, increased alcohol and drug use, and poor social functioning. The resulting law is “modest but important,” the state told the justices.

But the challengers say the law goes too far—and not far enough.

H.B. 1181’s strict age verification requirements burden “adults’ access to speech they have a right to receive,” while at the same time exempting “the search engines and social-media platforms that are principal gateways for minors’ access to that very content,” the challengers said in their brief.

The question for the justices turns on a technical question of what level of scrutiny to apply in analyzing the constitutionality of the law. The answer could have significant implications beyond access to adult content.

As one friend-of-the-court brief put it, the case implicates anonymous speech, “a cornerstone of American discourse for centuries, serving as a powerful tool for individuals to express ideas without fear of retaliation or social repercussion.”

Gun Violence

On March 4, the justices will hear Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, an attempt by Mexico to hold firearms manufacturers liable for gun violence in the country.

The First Circuit said Mexico’s suit against the manufacturers could continue, noting the significant cost to the government of the country’s gun-violence epidemic.

In doing so, the First Circuit acknowledged that the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act generally prohibits lawsuits against firearms companies for misuse of their products. But it agreed with Mexico that the nation had alleged something different, namely that the companies “deliberately chose to engage in unlawful affirmative conduct to profit off the criminal market for their products.”

Second Amendment cases at the high court are already high-profile and closely watched. But the companies told the justices that in addition to seeking billions of dollars in damages, the Mexican government is asking for “far-reaching injunctive relief that would reshape the landscape of American firearms regulation—from a ban on what it calls ‘assault weapons’ to a court-enforced system of universal background checks.”

Non-Delegation

The justices have also agreed to consider a challenge to the multi-billion-dollar Universal Service Fund, although the argument isn’t scheduled yet.

The fund is intended to enhance phone and broadband services in poor and rural communities. But the Fifth Circuit struck it down.

If allowed to stand, the Fifth Circuit’s ruling threatens to nullify programs that serve millions of Americans, the Biden administration told the justices.

Beyond the implications for telecommunications, the case could also reinvigorate the so-called non-delegation doctrine.

That doctrine, which says Congress can’t delegate its legislative authority to executive agencies, hasn’t been used to invalidate a federal law since 1935. That’s because the Supreme Court has said Congress can authorize agencies to fill in the details of enforcing and implementing federal policy so long as it provides an “intelligible principle” to guide the agency.

A more robust non-delegation doctrine, like the one the Fifth Circuit suggested, could further limit the role of agencies and put the onus on Congress to fill in the details of government policy.

Environmental Cases

In addition to substantive challenges to environmental policies, the justices have also agreed to consider a trio of cases on where those challenges can be brought.

The three cases—Oklahoma v. Environmental Protection Agency, PacifiCorp v. Environmental Protection Agency, and Environmental Protection Agency v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC—all involve challenges to EPA actions under the Clean Air Act.

The question for the justices is whether those challenges must be brought in a national forum, the D.C. Circuit, or whether they can also be brought in the regional courts of appeals.

The challengers say actions at issue have uniquely local effects, so it makes sense for regional appellate courts to consider them.

But the Biden administration told the justices the cases should be brought only in the D.C. Circuit to provide “uniform judicial review of regulatory issues of national importance.” Allowing multiple appellate courts to hear these cases “creates precisely the risk of duplicative litigation and inconsistent rulings that Congress sought to avoid.”

The case comes amid increasing scrutiny of so-called judge shopping, in which plaintiffs bring challenges—often to controversial federal policies—in courts in which they are likely to have the case heard by a judge friendly to their claims.