SCOTUS Repudiates Doctrine That Gave Agencies a License To Invent Their Own Authority
In two cases that the Supreme Court decided today, herring fishermen in Rhode Island and New Jersey challenged regulatory fees they said were never authorized by Congress. They asked the Court to reconsider, or at least clarify, a doctrine based on its 1984 decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which required that judges defer to a federal agency’s “permissible” or “reasonable” interpretation of an “ambiguous” statute.
Critics have long complained that Chevron deference allowed bureaucrats to usurp a judicial function and systematically disadvantaged “the little guy” in disputes with an overweening administrative state. The Supreme Court endorsed that critique by a 6–3 vote today, repudiating the idea that agencies, rather than judges, should resolve ambiguities in the statutes under which they operate.
Writing for the majority in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, Chief Justice John Roberts notes that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) “incorporates the traditional understanding of the judicial function, under which courts must exercise independent judgment in determining the meaning of statutory provisions.” He says “the deference that Chevron requires of courts reviewing agency action cannot be squared with the APA.”
The Chevron doctrine “defies the command of the APA that ‘the reviewing court’—not the agency whose action it reviews—is to ‘decide all relevant questions of law’ and ‘interpret…statutory provisions,'” Roberts writes. “It requires a court to ignore, not follow, ‘the reading the court would have reached’ had it exercised its independent judgment as required by the APA….It demands that courts mechanically afford binding deference to agency interpretations, including those that have been inconsistent over time. Still worse, it forces courts to do so even when a pre-existing judicial precedent holds that the statute means something else—unless the prior court happened to also say that the statute is ‘unambiguous.’ That regime is the antithesis of the time honored approach the APA prescribes.”
The idea that statutory ambiguities implicitly authorize federal agencies to resolve questions about their own powers, endorsed by the three dissenters, is “misguided,” Roberts says. “As Chevron itself noted, ambiguities may result from an inability on the part of Congress to squarely answer the question at hand, or from a failure to even ‘consider the question’ with the requisite precision. In neither case does an ambiguity necessarily reflect a congressional intent that an agency, as opposed to a court, resolve the resulting interpretive question.”
Roberts notes that courts “routinely confront statutory ambiguities in cases having nothing to do with Chevron” but “do not throw up their hands because ‘Congress’s instructions have’ supposedly ‘run out,’ leaving a statutory ‘gap.'” Instead they “use every tool at their disposal to determine the best reading of the statute and resolve the ambiguity.” Roberts says “it makes no sense to speak of a ‘permissible’ interpretation that is not the one the court, after applying all relevant interpretive tools, concludes is best.” While “agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities,” he says, “courts do.” And when “the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own
power,” that is “perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate.”
As Roberts notes, the concept of “ambiguity” is itself ambiguous. “The defining feature of [Chevron‘s] framework is the identification of
Article from Latest
The Reason Magazine website is a go-to destination for libertarians seeking cogent analysis, investigative reporting, and thought-provoking commentary. Championing the principles of individual freedom, limited government, and free markets, the site offers a diverse range of articles, videos, and podcasts that challenge conventional wisdom and advocate for libertarian solutions. Whether you’re interested in politics, culture, or technology, Reason provides a unique lens that prioritizes liberty and rational discourse. It’s an essential resource for those who value critical thinking and nuanced debate in the pursuit of a freer society.