In a notable judicial development, the Supreme Court has overturned its previously established Chevron deference, a doctrine originating from the 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. This doctrine mandated courts to defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of ambiguous laws, provided those interpretations were reasonable. The latest ruling, which was decided by a 6-3 vote, underscores a significant shift in judicial protocol regarding agency powers. In his 35-page opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts termed the Chevron doctrine as “fundamentally misguided” and asserted that courts must exercise their own judgment in interpreting statutes (for more details, visit SCOTUSblog).
This decision overturns decades of practice where the agency’s interpretation was considered authoritative in the face of statutory ambiguities. Justice Elena Kagan, voicing her dissent along with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the ruling introduces a disruptive change to the legal landscape, stressing the expertise that agencies bring to interpreting complex regulatory statutes.
Chief Justice Roberts, however, cited the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) as the basis for the court’s decision, emphasizing that the APA obligates courts to “decide legal questions by applying their own judgment,” thus declaring that agency interpretations should not be given deference. Even though courts will no longer defer to agency interpretations, Roberts acknowledged that agency insights on technical matters might still be considered under the less authoritative Skidmore deference.
The ramifications of this ruling are expected to extend across various domains, from environmental regulation to healthcare, significantly impacting the operational scope of federal agencies. For instance, the challenge arose from cases concerning National Marine Fisheries Service regulations, which required the herring industry to bear the costs of onboard observers to monitor compliance—a financial burden estimated at $710 daily per vessel (as discussed in the Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo cases).
This ruling is part of a broader conservative endeavor to reduce the power of federal agencies, a movement sometimes referred to as a “war on the administrative state.” This year alone, the Supreme Court has tackled multiple cases aimed at constraining agency authority, including a challenge to the funding mechanism of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and limiting the in-house proceedings of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).