In holding that courts must exercise independent judgment when examining whether an agency acted within its statutory authority, the Supreme Court dealt yet another blow to the administrative state. Overruling Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo promises to dramatically shift how courts approach executive agency interpretations of statutes.
The Loper majority argued that “Chevron cannot be reconciled with the [Administrative Procedure Act],” as the APA requires that courts have the final say on all relevant questions of law. This means that rather than deferring to how agencies interpret ambiguous laws, courts may now choose how much weight to give to the technical expertise possessed by administrators long cited by Chevron proponents as a justification for judicial deference.
Loper’s impact will extend across multiple domains. Though the case itself dealt with a rule issued by the National Fisheries Management Service interpreting the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, the Court’s decision to overrule Chevron will change how regulators approach issues from the environment to pharmaceuticals to finance. Any area where Congress has not expressly delegated interpretive authority to an executive agency is likely to see widespread change in years to come.
Given a broad spectrum of possible approaches to deference, Loper’s impact will become more apparent as agency actions are litigated in across the United States. Courts grappling with Loper may well adopt different approaches to such challenges, and it remains to be seen whether abandoning Chevron will result in a consistent, alternative approach or, more likely, a patchwork of different approaches varying by jurisdiction and statute.
Article by David Griffith