The Supreme Court’s Chevron Decision: What It Means for Federal Regulation

WASHINGTON (AP) — Executive branch agencies will likely have a harder time regulating the environment, public health, workplace safety and other issues under a far-reaching ruling of the Supreme Court.

The court’s 6-3 decision Friday overturned a 1984 ruling, commonly known as Chevron, that directed lower courts to defer to federal agencies when laws passed by Congress are not entirely clear.

The four-decade-old decision has been the basis for keeping thousands of regulations in force by dozens of federal agencies, but it has long been a target of conservatives and business groups who say it gives too much power to the executive branch, or as some critics say, call the administrative state.

The Biden administration defended the law, warning that overturning Chevron’s so-called deference would be destabilizing and could cause a “convulsive shock” in the nation’s legal system.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a longtime critic, suggested during oral arguments in the case that Chevron itself “shocks up the system every four or eight years, whenever a new administration comes in” and a president of one party replaces a leader from another.

Here’s a look at the court’s decision and its implications for future government regulations.

What is Chevron’s decision?

Atlantic herring Fishermen sued over federal rules requiring them to pay independent observers to monitor their catch. The fishermen argued that the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 did not authorize officials to create industry-funded monitoring requirements and that the National Marine Fisheries Service failed to follow proper rulemaking procedures.

In two related cases, the fisherman asked the court to overturn the 40-year-old Chevron Doctrine, which stems from a unanimous Supreme Court case involving the energy giant in the Clean Air Act dispute. That ruling said judges should defer to executive power when laws passed by Congress are ambiguous.

In that case, the court upheld a complaint by the Environmental Protection Agency under then-President Ronald Reagan.

In the decades following the Chevron ruling, it became the basis of modern administrative law, requiring judges to follow reasonable interpretations of congressional statutes issued by agencies.

But the current high court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, has been increasingly skeptical of the authority of federal agencies. In addition to Kavanaugh, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch have challenged the Chevron decision. Ironically, it was Gorsuch’s mother, former EPA Administrator Anne Gorsuch, who made the decision that the Supreme Court upheld in 1984.

What is the rate?

With a closely divided Congress, presidential administrations are increasingly turning to federal laws to make policy changes. Federal regulations affect virtually every aspect of everyday life, from the food we eat and the cars we drive, to the air we breathe and the homes we live in.

For example, President Joe Biden’s administration has issued a series of new regulations on the environment and other priorities, including curbing emissions from power plants AND vehicle exhaust pipesand rules regarding student loan forgiveness, overtime pay and affordable housing.

These and other actions may be open to legal challenge if judges are allowed to downplay or ignore the powers of the executive branches that implement them.

With potentially billions of dollars at stake, groups representing the defense industry and other businesses such as tobacco, agriculture, timber and construction are among those pressing the justices to overturn the Chevron Doctrine and weaken government regulations.

US Chamber of Commerce filed an amicus brief Last year, it argued on behalf of business groups that the modern application of the Chevron Act “fosters the growth” of executive power at the expense of Congress and the courts.

David Doniger, a lawyer and longtime official at the Natural Resources Defense Council who represented Chevron in the original 1984 case, said he fears a ruling striking down the doctrine could “free up judges to become radical activists” who could “effectively change our laws and block the protections they are supposed to provide.”

“The net effect will be to weaken our government’s ability to address the real problems the world throws at us – serious problems like Covid and climate change,” Doniger said.

More than just fish

“This case was never just about the fish,” said Meredith Moore of the environmental group Ocean Conservancy. Instead, businesses and other interest groups have used the herring fishery “to attack the foundations of the public agencies that serve the American public and protect our natural resources,” she said.

Repealing Chevron would likely open the floodgates to lawsuits that could undermine critical protections for people and the environment, Moore and other advocates say.

“For more than 30 years, fisheries observers have successfully helped ensure that our oceans are managed responsibly so that fishing can continue into the future,” said Dustin Cranor of Oceana, another environmental group.

He called the case “the latest example of the far right trying to undermine the federal government’s ability to protect our oceans, waters, public lands, clean air and health.”

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey called the cases an appropriate follow-up to a 2022 decision — in a case he brought — that limits EPA’s ability to control greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. The court held that Congress must speak specifically if it wants to give an agency the authority to regulate issues of major national importance.

Morrisey, now the GOP candidate for governor, called Chevron “a flawed doctrine in which courts rely on legally questionable interpretations of statutes issued by federal administrative agencies.”

Shift towards judicial power

The Supreme Court ruling will likely shift power from the executive branch and Congress to the courts, said Craig Green, a professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law.

If Chevron goes under, “federal judges will now have the first and final word on what the laws mean,” he said before issuing his ruling. “That’s a major power shift.”

While Republicans are now attacking Chevron, it was once celebrated by conservative supporters like the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who saw it as a way to stave off liberal laws.

“Conservatives believed in that principle until they didn’t,” Green said in an interview.

In recent years, conservatives have focused on “deconstructing the administrative state,” he said, even if that ultimately limits a conservative president’s ability to impose his views on government agencies.

“If you weaken the federal government, you get less government,” Green said, an outcome that is welcomed by many conservatives, including those who supported former President Donald Trump.

The ruling will likely “make it harder for federal agencies and even more difficult for them to solve big problems. And that’s exactly what Chevron’s critics want,” said Jody Freeman, director of the Environmental and Energy Law Program at Harvard Law School.