Chevron Deference is Overturned by U.S. Supreme Court

In a decision today, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the Chevron deference doctrine also known as the “Chevron deference,” which gives deference to an agency’s interpretation of a statute when an agency declares or decides a Congressional statute, or a part of a statute, is ambiguous and imposes its own interpretation/regulations on that statute or piece of statute. Instead, the Court found, that the judicial branch is uniquely given the Constitutional power to decide statutory interpretation not agencies (the Executive branch).

“Held: The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted withing its statutory authority, and the courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a law is ambiguous. Chevron is overruled.” (emphasis added).

This decision reverses a decades long deference to agencies (the Executive branch) to interpret what Congress meant when it passed a law. The Court emphasized that the power to decide statutory interpretation resides soundly with the judiciary and that the agency power grew to supplant that of the judiciary and that the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) was designed to check agency authority. Instead, the Court found, the agencies used the APA to expand their power through regulations and answered legal questions that should be reserved for the courts to decide. That, the Court found that the application  of the deference doctrine and statutory interpretation “does not square.”

Chevron, the Court found, was decided in 1984, and marked a departure from the traditional approach with a two-step approach to agency action. The first step was to ascertain if Congress had directly spoken to the question at issue–if so, the issue stops there. [This is where the criticism comes in that the agency automatically declares the question ambiguous and passes regulations that depart from the statute passed by Congress.] The second step, if the question is not answered or ambiguous, or not addressed with the appropriate level of ‘specificity,’ the agency would interpret the statute according to what that agency thought Congress meant. [This agency discretion has faced withering criticism that some agencies create law–not interpret it.]

The Court found that Chevron and the multitude of cases following it, failed to reconcile the APA’s framework and the Constitutional power of the judiciary–not the agency. Indeed, the Court found, the APA was put in place to check the powers of the agency and that has failed to happen. Courts may review reasonable interpretations of a statute by an agency in implementing a statute, but the role of the courts is to is to independently review and interpret the statute and effectuate the will of Congress. The Court found in overturning Chevron, the Court was fulfilling its own role by recognizing constitutional delegations, fixing the boundaries of the delegated authority, and ensuring the agency has engaged in reasoned decision making.

“Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron’s presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do. . . .Chevron gravely erred in concluding that the inquiry fundamentally different just because an administrative interpretation is in play. The very point of the traditional tools of statutory construction is to resolve statutory ambiguities. That is no less true when the ambiguity is about the scope of an agency’s own power–perhaps the occasion on which abdication in favor of the agency is least appropriate.”(emphasis in the original).

The Court went on to find that the restrictions put on Chevron made it a complex maze that was not necessary and supplanted the power of the judiciary. The Court found that Chevron has proved to be fundamentally misguided and fostered no meaningful reliance. The cases previously decided under Chevron will stand but going forward Chevron deference will no longer be employed.

For the full decision click here: Chevron Deference is Struck Down Decision