The Supreme Court building is seen on June 27, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to executive agencies’ power on Friday by overruling a prominent precedent that bolstered their ability to implement regulations in wide areas of American life, including consumer and environmental protections.
In an 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority upended a 40-year administrative law precedent that gave agencies across the federal government leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking.
Known as Chevron deference, the now-overturned legal doctrine instructed judges to defer to agencies in cases where the law is ambiguous.
Now, judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies — effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life.
This includes rules governing toxic chemicals, drugs and medicine, climate change, artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency and more.
The move hands a major victory to conservative and anti-regulatory interests that have looked to eliminate the precedent as part of a broader attack on the growing size of the “administrative state.” The Biden administration defended the precedent before the high court.
It also effectively represents Justice Neil Gorsuch overturning a precedent that upheld rules issued under his own mother, who was the head of the Environmental Protection Agency in the Reagan administration.
The case is not the first time the high court’s conservative majority has clawed back federal agency power in recent years.
In 2021 it ruled that agencies cannot rule on significant issues without “clear congressional authorization” — creating a higher legal bar for executive branch actions to clear.
The justices are mulling whether to claw back the Securities and Exchange Commission’s in-house enforcement system to seek civil penalties, with a decision expected later this month.
But the conservative-majority court did reject another challenge to the “administrative state” last month when they upheld the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding mechanism.
The challenge to Chevron before the court came through two separate but similar cases where herring fishermen challenged a rule requiring companies to pay for federal monitors onboard their vessels.
In ruling against the fishermen, lower courts invoked Chevron and deferred to the agencies in the cases, which are known as Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce.
Chevron itself dates back to 1984, when environmental advocates sought to challenge the Reagan administration’s efforts to limit air pollution restrictions. The court defended the agency’s action, arguing that its interpretation of the Clean Air Act should be upheld.
While the doctrine applies equally to both Democratic and Republican administrations in theory, in recent years, many conservatives have sought its demise, arguing that agency deference has allowed liberal administrations to enact sweeping regulatory regimes.