Supreme Court overturns Chevron decision, limiting federal agencies’ powers in major change

Washington – The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a landmark 40-year-old decision that gave federal agencies sweeping regulatory powers, undermining their authority to issue regulations unless Congress says something clearly.

The court split along ideological lines in the case, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the conservative majority. Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Kagan read portions of her dissent from the bench.

The court’s ruling in two related cases is a significant victory for the conservative legal movement, which has long sought to overturn or weaken the 1984 decision in Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council. Critics of the landmark ruling, which involved a challenge to a regulation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Air Act, say the so-called Chevron doctrine gives unelected federal bureaucrats too much power to make rules that affect key areas of American life, such as the workplace, the environment and health care.

“Chevron is reversed. Courts must exercise independent judgment in deciding whether an agency acted within its statutory authority as required by the (Administrative Procedure Act),” Roberts wrote to the court. The chief justice called the earlier decision “a judicial invention that required judges to disregard their statutory duties.”

The framework required courts to defer an agency’s interpretation of regulations enacted by Congress when warranted. Calls for its repeal came not only from conservative lawyers but also from some judges who argued that courts were abdicating their responsibility to interpret the law.

Supreme Court overturning the Chevron decision it is also further evidence of the six-judge conservative majority’s willingness to reject dozens of previous rulings. In June 2022, the court overturned Roe v. Wadeeliminating the constitutional right to abortion, and in June 2023 ended affirmative action in higher education.

A Challenge to Chevron’s Respect

The dispute that led to the court’s reassessment of the Chevron doctrine stemmed from a 2020 federal regulation that required owners of vessels fishing for Atlantic herring to pay for at-sea monitors.

Court documents show that the cost of these at-sea monitors, which collect data and oversee fishing operations, can cost more than $700 a day.

The National Marine Fisheries Service implemented this rule under the 1976 Act, arguing that the measure allowed it to require fishing vessels to cover the cost of monitors. However, companies that operate boats in New Jersey and Rhode Island have challenged the regulation in two different federal courts, arguing that the Fisheries Service lacks the authority to order industry-funded monitoring.

The federal government prevailed in both cases, and the fishing companies asked the Supreme Court to intervene and overturn the Chevron ruling.

The industry-monitored fishing program was suspended in April 2023 due to a lack of federal funding, and fishermen were reimbursed. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from one of the two Chevron cases before the court.

Doubts related to the ruling

While the conservative legal movement has decried the rise of the so-called administrative state, the Supreme Court’s decision to reconsider the Chevron ruling raised concerns that expanding or even limiting the framework would jeopardize the ability of federal agencies to create regulations on issues such as the environment, nuclear energy and health care.

Proponents of the doctrine argued that agencies had the knowledge and experience to fill gaps in the laws passed by Congress, especially when it came to administering programs that served broad segments of the population. Repealing Chevron would make it harder for the federal government to implement the laws passed by Congress, its proponents warned.

The Biden administration has urged the Supreme Court to leave Chevron deference intact, calling it a “fundamental principle of administrative law.” Justice Department lawyers have argued that the framework allows experts at federal agencies to interpret statutes and say they, not judges, are better equipped to address ambiguities in the law.

The Chevron doctrine has been applied by lower courts in thousands of cases. The Supreme Court itself has invoked the framework, which is intended to uphold agencies’ interpretations of statutes, at least 70 times, but not since 2016.

The pair of disputes was one of several that the justices are deciding this term that involve the powers of federal agencies. They also considered the constitutionality of internal legal proceedings at the Securities and Exchange Commission that threatened to undermine the work of administrative judges at various federal agencies, and whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives he lacked authority ban stocks under the 1934 law that regulated machine guns.

Court ruled by a split decision of 6-3 that the ATF actually went too far in banning bump stocks, reversing a rule put in place under the Trump administration.