Chevron doctrine overturned

Supreme Court votes 6-3 to end federal agency deference

POWELL — The Supreme Court has overturned the Chevron Doctrine, which instructed courts to defer to federal agencies on details where the law is unclear, so long as that guidance is “reasonable." The decision, released Friday by the court, will significantly reduce the federal government’s power to interpret laws and issue regulations — including protections for the environment, wildlife and their habitats and how scientists work in a variety of fields.

The victory for Loper Bright Enterprises, a herring fishing company in New Jersey, will make it easier for corporations, non-governmental organizations and individuals to challenge the rules issued by federal agencies — potentially influencing everything from the management of grizzly bears and wolves to the regulations placed on oil and gas developers.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts said 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.

He called the earlier decision a "judicial invention that required judges to disregard their statutory duties."

“Chevron is overruled,” he wrote for the court.

Critics of the ruling say it takes the decision-making process out of the hands of experts with specialized knowledge and experience and passes the responsibility to judges who are not specialists in specific case study — everything from environmental protections to food and financial safety nets.

The Chevron doctrine draws its name from a 1984 decision, in which the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and other environmental groups challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) decision to relax some regulations related to air pollution.

While the rules from President Ronald Reagan’s administration benefited American energy companies like Chevron, the NRDC charged that they deviated from the Clean Air Act.

The Supreme Court, however, unanimously upheld the EPA rules, ruling that the judicial branch should generally defer to executive branch agencies.

“Judges are not experts in the field,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in part.

The high court established a two-part test for evaluating challenges to federal regulations. In essence, it says that if the law underpinning the regulations is “ambiguous” and the agency’s interpretation of the law is “reasonable,” then the courts should leave the regulation alone.

It’s given presidential administrations considerable leeway.

For example, a president might decide to prioritize protections for sage grouse and make mineral leases more difficult to obtain.

However, the next administration might push agency experts to interpret the law in a way that allows for changes in their favor.

This constant change of course and lack of consistency can create problems for both protected species and energy extraction industries, for example.

During January’s oral arguments in Loper Bright, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said Chevron deference “ushers in shocks to the system every four or eight years whenever a new administration comes in.”

Both of Wyoming’s U.S. Senators were pleased with the results of the challenge to the 40-year-old precedent.

U.S. Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) applauded the decision, saying it will “curb the power and authority of unaccountable federal agencies.”

“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a major victory for getting Washington out of Wyoming. For too long, unelected, unaccountable Washington bureaucrats have gone unchecked. They abused the rulemaking process for decades. They ballooned the size of government and imposed on us a costly maze of burdensome political regulations. This ruling rightly curbs the power of rogue federal bureaucrats and puts it back into the hands of the American people,” he said.

U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) also celebrated the decision, saying it will rein in “runaway agencies’ sweeping authority.”

“For far too long, the Chevron doctrine has empowered unelected and unaccountable federal bureaucrats to have virtually uninhibited power to interpret the law however they please and use that interpretation to cater to this administration’s far left base,” Lummis said. “I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision to restore decision-making power back to democratically elected members of Congress just as our founding fathers intended rather than allowing D.C. bureaucrats to rule with an iron fist.”

Gov. Mark Gordon also celebrated, calling the decision a victory for common-sense regulatory reform and saying it “removed the fox from the hen house.”

“For years, unelected bureaucrats running federal agencies in Washington, D.C., have used ‘deference’ as an excuse to target certain industries based on politics. Wyoming has experienced that firsthand,” he said. “Limiting their power to overreach is cause for celebration, and this ruling begins that process.”

The doctrine had come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, including in cases backed by the State of Wyoming.

For example, one recent Supreme Court decision seen as weakening Chevron related to the 2015 Clean Power Plan. Put forward by the EPA under the Obama administration, the new limits on carbon dioxide emissions at existing coal and natural gas-fired power plants were pitched as “an essential step in lessening the impacts of climate change and providing a more certain future for our health, our environment, and future generations.”

However, the plan was scrapped by the Trump administration before being brought back in a new form by the Biden administration.

Ultimately, in 2022, the Supreme Court sided with West Virginia, Wyoming and more than a dozen other states, ruling that the EPA lacked authority under the Clean Air Act to impose the CO2 limits.

Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon called the decision a “clean win” for the state against “an overzealous federal bureaucracy insulated from practical accountability.”

Southern Environmental Law Center Litigation Director Kym Meyer said “The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority just handed a big win to industry groups and ideological opponents of governmental protections that keep us all safe.”

She said the cases in question arose from disputes about fishing regulations, but claims there is a much bigger issue at stake: “how federal courts decide whether to uphold or strike down agency regulations, including those that protect our clean air and clean water; the safety of our food, cars, and airplanes; our medical care; our bank deposits, and much more.”

“Today’s ruling sidelines the role of agency expertise, and instead shifts power to judges who do not have the expertise of agency staff who live and breathe the science, financial principles, and safety concerns that federal agencies specialize in,” she said.

This story was published on July 2, 2024.