We have a monumental Supreme Court decision to discuss that will significantly impact the power of unelected agencies within the executive branch. In a landmark 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court has overturned the 1984 Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council decision, a move that will curtail the ability of these agencies to interpret ambiguous laws and impose additional regulations—a tool frequently utilized by Democratic administrations.
The Chevron decision, as Henry Olsen noted, shifted a substantial amount of power from Congress and the courts to the President, allowing administrative agencies, often run by presidential appointees, to make political judgments that the Constitution intended to be made by elected legislators. Ed Whelan pointed out that Chevron allowed statutory ambiguities to become a license for agencies to change positions freely, undermining the rule of law.
The case that led to this significant ruling is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The plaintiffs, fishermen, sued Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, challenging a National Marine Fisheries Service rule that required them to pay the salaries of federal inspectors aboard their boats. The National Fisheries Service had cited Chevron, arguing that the law’s silence on this issue granted them the authority to impose such a requirement.
Initially, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled in favor of the Fisheries Service. However, the plaintiffs’ petition to the Supreme Court questioned whether Chevron should be overruled or clarified to state that statutory silence on controversial powers does not constitute an ambiguity that requires deference to the agency.
In its decision, the Supreme Court stated, “Under the Chevron doctrine, courts have sometimes been required to defer to ‘permissible agency interpretations of the statutes those agencies administer—even when a reviewing court reads the statute differently.'” This practice has now been overturned.
The Court emphasized that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority and may not defer to an agency interpretation simply because a statute is ambiguous.
The Court further elaborated, “Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. The Framers anticipated that courts would often confront statutory ambiguities and expected that courts would resolve them by exercising independent legal judgment. Chevron gravely erred in concluding that the inquiry is fundamentally different just because an administrative interpretation is in play.”
The decision was met with praise from various political figures. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) responded, “Today’s decision fixes the decades-long error of handing vague and broad powers to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats. The Supreme Court’s decision restores the Constitutional power to write the law to where it should be—with the elected representatives of the American people.”
This ruling marks a significant shift in the balance of power, ensuring that ambiguous statutory interpretations remain within the purview of elected legislators and the judiciary, rather than unelected administrative agencies. Stay tuned as we continue to unpack the implications of this historic decision and how it will shape the regulatory landscape moving forward.
