Supreme Court Limits Federal Agencies’ Regulatory Power By Reversing 40-Year-Old Chevron Precedent
deadline.comThe Supreme Court overturned a 40-year-old precedent that gave deference to federal agencies in interpreting ambiguous statutes as they create and enforce regulations.
The court’s six conservative justices all voted to overturn what has been known as the “Chevron doctrine,” rooted in a 1984 case and impacting everything from the enforcement of clean air and water to rules to FCC regulations on broadcasting and the internet. “Chevron defies the command of the [the Administrative Procedure Act] that ‘the reviewing court’—not the agency whose action it reviews—is to ‘decide all relevant questions of law’ and ‘interpret . . .
statutory provisions’,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. He added, “Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA, as the Government and the dissent contend, by presuming that statutory ambiguities are implicit delegations to agencies.” Read the Supreme Court opinion overturning Chevron.
In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan wrote that in the majority ruling, “the Court flips the script: It is now ‘the courts (rather than the agency)’ that will wield power when Congress has left an area of interpretive discretion.
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