The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday overturned a precedent that had for decades restricted the judiciary’s power to issue executive branch regulations, a decision that drew immediate criticism for its potential to undermine decisions made by scientists and agency experts.
The 6-3 and 6-2 decisions Two cases brought by fishing companies in New Jersey and Rhode Island challenged a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration rule and overturned the principle known as the Chevron deference.
This precedent gave federal agencies broad discretion to resolve any ambiguities left by Congress in a federal law.
The six conservative members of the court justified this by saying that courts are “regularly confronted with legal ambiguities” that have nothing to do with the authority of regulators, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion.
“Of course, statutory ambiguity in such a case does not constitute a delegation of jurisdiction to anyone, nor does it in any way relieve a court of its obligation to interpret the law independently,” Roberts wrote.
Because of this 40-year-old precedent, the courts have given up their power of interpretation and left it to the authorities, Roberts wrote.
But they should not, he added. Judges should exploit their own legal reasoning to reach a reasonable decision.
“Instead, the courts assume that such laws, no matter how impenetrable, must have – and indeed must have – a single, best meaning.”
1984 ruling overturned
The ruling overturned Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 Supreme Court ruling that required courts to rely on the expertise of federal agencies when reviewing legal challenges to a rule. The 1984 ruling significantly raised the bar for overturning an agency rule.
That precedent strengthened the executive branch under presidents of both parties. But experts fear that overturning that precedent will strip agencies of the power to impose regulatory protections on a wide range of issues, including pristine air and public health.
In a dissenting opinion, the court’s three liberals – except for Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who recused herself from one of the cases because she had heard the case as an appellate judge before moving to the Supreme Court – said the majority had erred in misunderstanding the roles of the three branches of government.
Congress knows it “cannot write perfectly complete regulatory statutes,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissenting opinion. The interpretation of these statutes is a given, and Congress generally prefers a “responsible agency” rather than a court.
She wrote that the authorities bore greater political responsibility and had greater technical expertise in a particular case than the courts.
“Taking all of this together, deference to the agency is the almost obvious choice,” Kagan wrote.
Kagan further criticized the decision, calling it a power struggle within the judiciary at the expense of the agency’s experts.
“The rule of judicial modesty is giving way to a rule of judicial hubris,” she wrote. “In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over all outstanding questions – no matter how expert or politically motivated – concerning the meaning of regulatory law.”
Liberals see weakening of protective mechanisms
Liberal groups and elected Democrats fear that the repeal will strip authorities of the power to impose strict regulatory protections on a wide range of issues, particularly climate and environmental protection.
“It weakens our government’s ability to protect us from the climate crisis, threats to worker safety, public health, clean air and water, safe medicines and food, a sound financial system, and more,” Manish Bapna, president of the environmental group NRDC Action Fund, wrote in a statement.
“Today’s reckless but unsurprising decision by this far-right court is a triumph for corporate polluters seeking to dismantle common-sense regulations protecting clean air, clean water and a livable climate future,” Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the advocacy group Food & Water Watch, said in a statement.
Rachel Weintraub, executive director of the Coalition for Sensible Safeguards, a group that advocates for robust federal regulations, said in an interview before the decision was released that Chevron’s reticence had enabled a variety of regulations touching on consumer safety, labor standards, environmental protections and other issues.
“This could undermine the important role government plays in ensuring the health and safety of our families and the fairness of our markets,” she said.
The ruling deprives experts for a specific area of a federal regulation – such as traffic engineers in the Ministry of Transport, epidemiologists at the Food and Drug Administration or scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency – of their decision-making authority and transfers it into the hands of the federal judiciary, Weintraub said.
Democratic U.S. Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, ranking member of the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, called the ruling a gift to polluters and the fossil fuel industry.
“For 40 years, Congress has passed laws knowing that the interpretation of those laws is for the courts, but implementation is in the hands of the scientific and policy experts in our federal agencies,” Grijalva said in a statement.
“But now, thanks to this extremist takeover, our most basic protections are subject to the whim of individual judges – many of whom are far-right ideologues – regardless of their lack of expertise or political agenda.”
Conservatives welcome withdrawal
Republicans in Congress and conservative activists praised the decision for weakening the administrative state and said it would return more power to the legislature.
“The Constitution gives Congress the sole authority to make laws,” said Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Kentucky Senate, in a statement. “After forty years of the Chevron attitude, the Supreme Court made clear today that our system of government leaves no room for an unelected bureaucracy to usurp that authority for itself.”
Republican Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee, said Friday’s ruling should spur Congress to pass more binding laws.
“Congress has evaded our legal obligations for far too long, and today’s decision gives us back control of the law and regulatory authority,” Westerman said in a written statement. “We will no longer allow federal agencies to dictate the details of the policies we adopt.”
Attorney Roman Martinez, who represented the interests of Rhode Island fishermen, called the ruling a “victory for individual freedom and the Constitution.”
“The court has taken an important step to stop unlawful power grabs by federal agencies and to preserve the separation of powers,” Martinez said in a statement distributed by the conservative public relations firm CRC Advisors. “Going forward, judges will be charged with interpreting the law faithfully, impartially and independently, without regard to the government.”
No plans to reopen elderly cases
In the majority opinion, Roberts said the court does not intend to reopen cases decided by Chevron “despite our changed interpretive methodology.”
Even before Friday’s decision, the court had used Chevron less frequently. hearingRoberts cited a study that found that the court had relied sparingly on precedent over the past 14 years.
The court’s conservative majority has shown its willingness to move away from subordination to agency decisions and is demanding more explicit instructions from Congress.
For example, in West Virginia v. EPA in 2022, the court ruled that the EPA did not have the authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Daniel Wolff, an administrative law attorney with the law firm Crowell & Moring, downplayed the ruling’s impact on the administrative state.
Congress sometimes specifically directs agencies to develop regulations, and those regulations would continue to be subject to the same standards they would if they were reasonably drafted, Wolff said in an interview before the decision.
Rules with a solid legal and statutory basis would prevail under both standards, he said.
“The withdrawal of Chevron simply means that the authorities can no longer give the benefit of the doubt in the event of a tie,” Wolff said. “They have to go to court and convince it that they understand the law better.”
Fishery operators
The cases decided Friday were brought by herring fisheries operators from New Jersey and Rhode Island, challenging a NOAA rule that requires operators to pay federal inspectors who regularly accompany fishing boats to monitor compliance with federal regulations.
The fishing operators stated that the regulation would require them to surrender up to 20 percent of their profits.
After a lower court ruled in NOAA’s favor based on the Chevron ruling, Oral statements The dispute over the settlement before the Supreme Court in January focused almost exclusively on Chevron.
