ABC on Monday urged federal regulators to stick with a decision their predecessors made two decades ago that called “The View,” the network’s popular talk show, a news program.

The Federal Communications Commission has been investigating whether the show violated rules that require broadcasters to give equal time to political candidates from both parties. At the center of the debate is whether “The View” qualifies as a “bona fide news program,” which would exempt it from those rules.

In a filing to the agency on Monday, the network said that matter was already settled, citing a 2002 decision from the F.C.C. qualifying it for the exemption.

“Nothing about ‘The View’ that the law cares about has changed since the commission last answered that question more than two decades ago,” the network said in its petition. “The program remains regularly scheduled, remains under ABC’s control, and remains driven by the same lodestar — newsworthiness — that has long led it to interview the day’s most consequential figures.”

A spokeswoman for the F.C.C. said in a statement that ABC should focus on “complying with” federal obligations for broadcasters, “rather than misleading the public about them.”

“The View” has interviewed several prominent politicians since Brendan Carr, the head of the F.C.C., announced his investigation in February, including Vice President JD Vance, the former Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey.

The F.C.C.’s focus on “The View” plays on longstanding grudges held by the president against the show and some of its hosts, and thrusts a talk show started by the ABC journalist Barbara Walters as a breezy kaffeeklatsch into a molten national debate over free-speech rights and the Trump administration’s war against traditional media. Mr. Carr’s investigation has led to tens of thousands of comments from the public on the F.C.C. website.

The current administration has waged a multifront war against the media, threatening litigation, revoking press credentials and issuing bare-knuckled public remarks from the White House briefing room. The F.C.C. is also undergoing a wider review of whether ABC should be allowed to continue to own some of the country’s most important local television stations.

At issue for “The View” are longstanding rules from the early era of electronic broadcasting that require television and radio stations — licensed by the F.C.C. — to grant equal time to candidates for the same office.

News programming was exempted from those rules, and over the years talk shows, including “The View,” came to fall under the same carve out.

Mr. Carr announced earlier this year that he was going to be far more restrictive in granting such exemptions, and is now effectively trying to pull back the 2002 determination about “The View.” The agency in March compelled ABC to file for a new determination, and the network conveyed that its latest filing had been made under duress.

In its filing, ABC said it believed that the matter should go before the full commission for a vote, rather than remain with the F.C.C.’s media bureau, though Mr. Carr exerts a great deal of control over the entire agency.

The ABC filing is co-signed by Paul D. Clement, one of the nation’s leading conservative Supreme Court litigators, indicating ABC would challenge a loss of its exception.

One of the leading conservative groups siding against ABC, the Center for American Rights, has argued that “The View” should not count as a bona fide news program because its hosts are not professional journalists.

It also argued in a June submission that the program had a “deep and consistent lack of balance” that suggested the airtime was being used to forward a political agenda, “rather than as an exercise in good-faith newscasting.”

ABC News has denied as much but, in its filing, it also said it was not government’s role to decide what did and didn’t constitute political bias.

Companies are bracing for the fallout of a decision by the Supreme Court last week that allows the president to fire members of federal regulatory boards for any reason, stripping those regulators of their independence from the White House.

The decision has implications for more than a dozen agencies that oversee power companies, railways, investment banks, labor disputes and the biggest technology companies. Now, corporate executives and lawyers are grappling with the potential for these agencies — which set the rules and enforce them — to become even more political.

The decision “enables a lot more mischief,” said Douglas Melamed, a former general counsel at the chip maker Intel and a former senior official at the Justice Department. “The president is totally free to micromanage things and really squeeze these agencies.”

The ruling adds to the unpredictability of doing business in the United States, where regulation has heavily depended on which party is in power. Republicans tended to loosen the rules, while Democrats tended to add restrictions.

Under the Biden administration, for example, regulators limited drilling on public lands, banned noncompete agreements and sued Adobe and Live Nation, arguing that the companies broke antitrust and consumer protection laws. After President Trump took office a second time, his appointees quickly reversed or abandoned those decisions and settled those lawsuits.

These policy swings tended to be moderated by the federal agencies, which have long held bipartisan leadership. And federal law forbade the president to fire the regulators without cause.

Now more volatile policy-making could lie ahead as a result of the court decision, former corporate executives, former regulators and legal experts warned. Many companies plan for expansions and investments years in advance, and regulatory uncertainty often stifles growth.

“Stability is the most important thing,” said Samuel J. Palmisano, a former chief executive of IBM and now a board member of a venture fund, America’s Frontier Fund. The decision “will slow down innovation.”

The independent agencies affected by the court’s decision include the Federal Trade Commission, which works to protect consumers from practices like deceptive advertising or those harmful to competition; the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees interstate power lines, natural gas operations and regional power grid operators; the Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroad rates; and the National Labor Relations Board, which resolves disputes between employees and employers.

Commissioners leading the agencies — traditionally a mix of Republicans and Democrats — are appointed by the president. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled that the president could not fire the regulators over political or policy differences.

That held until last year, when Mr. Trump dismissed Democratic commissioners at agencies including the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board and the Surface Transportation Board.

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, a fired F.T.C. member, took her case to the Supreme Court, saying she had been wrongfully terminated. The court ruled against her last week.

A spokesman for the F.T.C., Joe Simonson, said the agency offered “clarity for the business community that was under assault by the previous administration’s left-wing ideologues.” He added, “There is nothing novel about President Trump’s position as the rightful leader of the executive branch, which the court affirmed.”

Some regulatory experts and corporate advisers said it was unclear how much — if at all — the ruling might shift the agencies’ political agendas. Even when independent, most regulators adhered to the White House’s policies, they said.

“The notion that Slaughter is a big deal because it gives the president more composed power over the policy agenda is exaggerated,” said Joseph Grundfest, who was a commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission in the 1980s and is now a law and business professor at Stanford.

But the agencies have traditionally ignored politics when taking legal action, he said. The White House could now assert greater control over decisions like whether to sue a company over insider trading.

Companies are trying to plan ahead, said Matthew L. Schwartz, the chairman of the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner.

“They’re doing what smart people and smart companies do, which is solicit input from a lot of knowledgeable people about what might be coming around the corner so they can try and do some contingency planning,” said Mr. Schwartz, who has represented companies including the fantasy sports app DraftKings and the insurer AIG.

The president’s new ability to remove decision makers at federal agencies could lead to big changes in crucial sectors of the economy.

Two freight rail companies, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern, last year proposed a merger that would create the nation’s first single network connecting the East and West coasts, a deal that requires approval by the Surface Transportation Board. Last year, Mr. Trump fired Robert E. Primus, a board member who had voted against another big rail merger in 2023.

With Mr. Primus’s removal, Union Pacific and Norfolk Southern may have a better chance of getting the board to approve their merger, some rail analysts have said. A spokeswoman for the board declined to comment.

Some consumer advocacy groups are concerned about the potential impact of a partisan Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on energy prices.

“FERC has really been through Republican and Democratic administrations and really worked hard to be nonpartisan,” said Tyson Slocum, the director of the energy program at Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group. “What the Supreme Court has done is toss that aside.”

The ruling also has implications for companies with business before the N.L.R.B., which includes adjudicating labor practice cases and recognizing new unions.

If the agency loses — or even appears to lose — its political independence, or seems beholden to the president, unions and companies will be less trusting of its rulings, labor experts said. State labor agencies may try to step in to fill the void, which could create a patchwork of conflicting rules.

Companies have already scrambled over the past year and a half to curry favor with the Trump administration. Mr. Trump’s new power to fire regulators who don’t align with him may accelerate that, corporate experts said.

Many companies have already sought out connections with Mr. Trump’s inner circle or made donations to his inauguration, his library or other pet projects, said Jill Zuckman, a partner at SKDK, a public affairs firm.

“It’s going to supercharge what a lot of companies have been doing,” said Ms. Zuckman, who represents tech and transportation companies and worked for the Obama administration.

Reporting was contributed by Ivan Penn from Los Angeles, Jordyn Holman from Chicago, and Peter Eavis, Lauren Hirsch and Rebecca Davis O’Brien from New York.

As nicotine pouches explode in popularity, tobacco companies are investing heavily in factories in the United States and creating new jobs from Florida to Colorado.

Along with vaping products, the Big Tobacco corporations have seized on the nicotine pouch market as a way to offset the steep decline in domestic sales of cigarettes. Pouch sales are projected to increase to more than $40 billion worldwide by 2033 from $6.9 billion in 2025, according to an analysis by Grand View Research, a market research firm.

Companies are racing to meet the demand, so far investing more than $1 billion in plant production to accommodate the growth. Several states have welcomed the industry’s forays into the latest twists on nicotine products, handing out millions of dollars in tax credits and grants.

But the marketing of nicotine-laden items like pouches, gums and lozenges as another safe alternative to traditional cigarettes has heightened public health concerns. Experts are accusing the tobacco industry of once again deliberately ignoring decades of science that proved the addictive nature of nicotine, and of stoking demand by producing more and more potent varieties.

Reminiscent of Juul and other flavored vaping products that caused a public uproar over teenage consumption, the pouches — tobacco-free “lip pillows” placed between the cheek and gum — have revived warnings that nicotine is highly addictive and can cause a host of conditions, like anxiety and heart arrhythmia. It also threatens a teenager’s still-developing brain, with the potential for affecting behavior and cognitive function, experts say.

Colorado’s governor, Jared Polis, a Democrat, defended his state’s decision to support a new $600 million plant in Aurora, built by Philip Morris International, which is getting $4.5 million in state tax credits.

“We were the first state to legalize marijuana, and now have over 650 dispensaries, have legalized natural medicine and have almost 50 regulated healing centers that offer psilocybin,” Governor Polis said. “Of course, we want safer alternatives to smoking, like Zyn, to be in our state.”

The expansions signal the tobacco industry’s influence in the widening debate over the safety of this new generation of products.

As a major donor to President Trump, the industry has enjoyed a friendlier reception from his administration than they did from other presidents.

In May, the Food and Drug Administration issued new guidance relaxing regulations on nicotine pouches and vapes, a week after the tobacco company Reynolds American donated $5 million to a Trump-backed super PAC.

In late June, the F.D.A. announced that it would allow some products from one brand, Zyn, to be marketed as having a lower risk for some cancers and diseases than cigarettes do.

The pouches also have a prominent booster in Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, who has described pouches as “probably the safest way to consume nicotine” and has acknowledged using them.

Zyn is produced by Swedish Match, a Philip Morris International subsidiary. Its plant in Aurora employs more than 120 people, with plans to expand to 500 employees. In addition, the corporation spent $232 million to build a plant in Owensboro, Ky., and employs 340 workers there.

In the last two years, Reynolds added about 1,000 jobs in the United States, mainly through pouch-making expansion, according to Luis Pinto, a company spokesman.

Altria, which makes Marlboro cigarettes, is producing the brands called on! and on! PLUS in Richmond, Va. The company won F.D.A. approval in December for additional pouch products under a new streamlined program. (Altria was known as Philip Morris, which rebranded in 2008 and spun off international sales to Philip Morris International.)

In December, Swisher, known for Swisher Sweets cigars, announced a $135 million expansion to its Jacksonville, Fla., factory. The company said it expected to add at least 240 jobs to support production of nicotine and caffeine pouches.

And the Swedish firm WiJo is spending $13 million to open its first pouch plant in North America, in Lexington, S.C.

In South Carolina, a large Juul plant in Lexington County that had been awarded tax abatements and grants closed after a federal ban on most flavored vapes in 2020, and politicians said they were glad to see it go. But officials in the same county awarded tax incentives to WiJo for its pouch factory last year.

The American tobacco industry has imported the technology for nicotine pouches from Sweden, often by purchasing that country’s companies. Altria bought Helix Sweden in a series of deals starting in 2019. Philip Morris International bought Swedish Match for $16 billion in 2022.

Garrett Nelson, a senior equity analyst at CFRA, said smoke-free nicotine products like pouches and vapes were generating new revenue for a tobacco industry that had appeared moribund.

“They are now viewed as growth companies, and there is a lot of optimism surrounding products like Zyn and IQOS and other smoke-free products,” Mr. Nelson said in an interview.

Zyn dominates the pouch market.

“If you look at the first quarter, they have 61 percent retail market share in dollar terms of the nicotine pouch market in the U.S. and, on a volume basis, about 56 percent of the market share,” Mr. Nelson said.

While most of Philip Morris International’s revenue continues to come from cigarettes, Zyn has helped the company to nearly double its share price in two years.

But the supposedly safer alternatives to traditional smoking haven’t quelled concerns about nicotine dependence. Symptoms include irritability, restlessness, trouble concentrating, anxiety, and appetite and mood changes.

The American Lung Association has sounded the alarm about pouches becoming the latest avenue for young people to develop an addiction. Citing similar concerns, in May the World Health Organization urged stricter regulation of them. In April, France went further by outlawing nicotine pouches, causing trade tensions with Sweden.

Sam Dashiell, a spokesman for PMI, disputed claims that these products targeted young people, saying pouches were being marketed to the 25 million adult Americans who still smoked cigarettes.

“Smoke-free products are a better option for current legal-age nicotine consumers who would otherwise continue smoking or using other traditional tobacco products,” Mr. Dashiell said.

Pouch proponents often cite the success in Sweden, where smoking rates have dropped considerably, and where the switch from cigarettes to pouches is sometimes called “the Swedish model.”

These products use nicotine extracted from tobacco leaves or synthetic nicotine, which is becoming more common. The pouches contain a powdered mix of nicotine, flavors and other ingredients that dissolve in the mouth.

Pouches are often promoted as more than a cigarette replacement. Some MAHA-aligned health influencers (a.k.a. Zynfluencers) endorse them as a hack for energy and cognitive enhancement. The conservative media host Tucker Carlson, who co-owns a pouch brand, promotes pairing nicotine and caffeine products “for a perfect coffee break.”

Mr. Dashiell said Phillip Morris International does not pay social media influencers to market its pouches.

Dr. Gina Kruse, a professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Anschutz who researches tobacco cessation, said more research was needed to determine the effects of nicotine pouches.

“A lot of the studies that have looked at things like the cytotoxicity of pouches, or the constituents, have come from industry,” she said. “And there’s an urgent need for more independent research to understand what risks come with these.”

She added that a broad concern centers on the potential for pouches to become an “on-ramp” to nicotine dependence, and entice people to move to harmful products like cigarettes. “And there’s certainly concern about flavors appealing to youths,” Dr. Kruse said.

A growing worry is that companies are raising the levels of nicotine, making the pouches more potent and more addictive, said Sven Jordt, a distinguished professor at Duke University School of Medicine.

Dr. Jordt, who is a member of the F.D.A.’s advisory committee on tobacco products, said the highest levels of nicotine in some popular pouches had risen from six to eight milligrams of nicotine per pouch to nine to 15 milligrams. “That’s definitely a quantum jump.”

The stronger pouches include Reynolds American’s Grizzly and Velo Plus, and Philip Morris International’s Zyn Ultra, he said.

“We need to investigate what happens in long-term use, to the whole digestive system,” he said.

“It’s another source of artificial sweeteners, with their own issues,” Dr. Jordt added. “What happens to sleep behavior, what happens to fertility? There have to be studies about oral health — how does it affect gum health?”

Dr. Jordt said Sweden was a cautionary tale: “Now they have an epidemic of oral tobacco use, and I think that might, unfortunately, be the future in the United States.”

The expansion of factories “signals the strategies of these companies for the future,” he said.

Mr. Pinto of Reynolds American said the company planned to spend $3.2 billion by 2030 to make more nicotine products, with pouches driving most of the expansion.