Is the Sentencing Commission's policy statement implementing retroactive guideline amendments invalid?

QUESTION PRESENTED In 2011, the Sentencing Commission changed its policy statement in U.S.S.G. § 1B1.10 to disqualify defendants who received sentences below the Guidelines range from receiving consideration for retroactive sentence reductions, while making defendants who received within or even above Guidelines sentences fully eligible. The rule excludes thousands of prisoners serving very long sentences from consideration for sentence reductions, even though their sentences were “based on” the Guidelines under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) as construed in Hughes v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1765 (2018). This case challenges the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of both statutory and constitutional challenges to the disparities created by the Commission’s policy statement and presents two exceptionally important questions regarding the substantive limits of the Commission’s authority and the needless incarceration of prisoners during the coronavirus pandemic: Is the Sentencing Commission’s policy statement implementing retroactive guideline amendments invalid to the extent it excludes a subset of prisoners whose sentences were based on the same overly harsh guideline from eligibility for a sentence reduction, because the exclusion thwarts the purposes of sentencing as set out by Congress in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), 28 U.S.C. § 991(b), and 28 U.S.C. § 994(f)? Under the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause, does the exclusion of defendants who established grounds for downward variance or departure at their original sentencings from eligibility for sentence reductions under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2) fail rational basis scrutiny because the discrimination neither furthers nor is connected in scope to a legitimate government purpose?