You’re absolutely right, it’s absurd and that’s the point. For the GOP court to say the FTC can do that, they will expect Congress to pass a law saying “the FTC has the authority to ban non-compete agreements of every kind” but that’s dumb and defeats the purpose of executive agencies, we agree. But that’s the point. Congress will rarely if ever be that specific, so anyone can argue a law is not what they meant and the agencies have no deference.
The end goal is agencies are powerless and Congress is paralyzed, so the judiciary has all of the authority to decide what everything means.
Additional statistics about the IRA, which Trump and Vance have vowed to defund, from E2 two years into the IRA:
https://e2.org/reports/clean-economy-works-two-year-review-2024/