WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court overruled a key administrative law ruling Friday, tossing out four decades of precedent and limiting the government’s ability to interpret federal laws.
“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative supermajority. “Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the APA requires.”
Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council gave deference to federal agencies’ interpretation of statutes. For 40 years, the precedent has been the backbone of administrative law, limiting judicial decision-making in favor of agency expertise.
Justice Elena Kagan said her six conservative colleagues were throwing restraint out the door in a grasp for power. Joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Kagan chastised the making as a laughing stock of stare decisis, quipping that a good title for the opinion should be “Hubris Squared.”
Both stare decisis and Chevron are doctrines of judicial modesty, Kagan said, telling judges that they do not know everything. “So today, the majority rejects what judicial humility counsels not just once but twice over,” the Obama appointee wrote.
Two years ago, the conservative supermajority created a carveout from Chevron, allowing judges to discard agency deference if the contested regulation concerns a major question. The justices already used the broad ruling to question the government’s authority to regulate air pollution and forgive student loans.
The doubleheader before the Supreme Court involves the use of Chevron to uphold a regulation forcing fisheries to pay for mandatory third-party monitoring. A lower court found that the Magnuson-Stevens Act allowed the agency to require monitoring, but the statute did not specify if the agency could force fisheries to pay for the observers.
Although the payment section of the regulation was not specified in the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the D.C. Circuit ruled in favor of the government by applying Chevron. The panel deferred to the agency’s interpretation instead of the fisheries challenging the rule.
The high court now reverses the appeals court, finding that the court need not rely on the opinion of the National Marine Fisheries Service.
Roberts said the framers intended the judiciary to be the final interpreter of laws because unlike the political branches, courts were designed to only exercise judgment. While the court has long recognized that executive branch interpretations of statutes, Roberts said such respect has always had its limits.
“The views of the executive branch could inform the judgment of the judiciary, but did not supersede it,” the George W. Bush appointee wrote. “Whatever respect an executive branch interpretation was due, a judge ‘certainly would not be bound to adopt the construction given by the head of a department.’”
The Administrative Procedure Act, Robert said, was meant to be a check on administrative authority, giving courts the role of independently interpreting statutes to reflect Congress’ intentions.
Roberts said the deference Chevron afforded to agencies can not be squared with the APA.
“In fretting over the prospect of ‘allow[ing]’ a judicial interpretation of a statute ‘to override an agency’s’ in a dispute before a court, Chevron turns the statutory scheme for judicial review of agency action upside down,” Roberts wrote.
The result of Chevron’s charge, Roberts said, did not only prevent judges from policymaking, it prevented them from judging. For decades, Roberts said the court has doubted Chevron’s congruence with the authority Congress delegated to executive authorities.
“In truth, Chevron’s justifying presumption is, as members of this court have often recognized, a fiction,” Roberts wrote.
At the Supreme Court in January, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar warned the justices of the potential fallout of overturning Chevron. Since the lower courts have relied on the precedent for so long, throwing out the ruling could lead to the consideration of other cases. Prelogar estimated that there are about 80 rulings that could be challenged without Chevron.
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