Supreme Court overturns Chevron doctrine, stripping power from federal agencies

The U.S. Supreme Court has overturned what is known as the Chevron doctrine, severely weakening federal agencies’ power to interpret statutes and upending 40 years of precedent.

On Friday, June 28, the Supreme Court published its opinion in a case that sought to rein in power given to federal agencies when establishing rules and regulations. In a 6-3 decision split along ideological lines, the high court overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which is the most frequently cited case in administrative law.

“The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The Chevron doctrine emerged from a 1984 case and gave federal agencies the power to interpret ambiguous statutes when they were challenged, taking the issue out of the hands of federal judges.

Opponents argued that the doctrine put too much power in the hands of politically motivated agencies.

“At best, our intricate Chevron doctrine has been nothing more than a distraction from the question that matters: Does the statute authorize the challenged agency action? And at worst, it has required courts to violate the (Administrative Procedure Act) by yielding to an agency the express responsibility, vested in ‘the reviewing court,’ to ‘decide all relevant questions of law’ and ‘interpret . . . statutory provisions,’” Roberts opined.

On the other hand, supporters contend that federal agencies, not a judge, are the experts on issues addressed in regulations.

“Congress knows that it does not – in fact cannot – write perfectly complete regulatory statutes. It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other actor will have to fill,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion. “And it would usually prefer that actor to be the responsible agency, not a court. Some interpretive issues arising in the regulatory context involve scientific or technical subject matter. Agencies have expertise in those areas; courts do not.”

The Supreme Court’s decision effectively strips away power from federal agencies in certain cases challenging their rules. For decades, federal courts had to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute whenever the language was deemed ambiguous. Moving forward, the power of interpretation will be shifted to judges in legal challenges to federal rules and regulations.

Read more about the Chevron doctrine here. LL