By Frank Giles
When the Supreme Court of the United States makes a ruling, the results and interpretation are sometimes straightforward. Other times, rulings are nuanced and less clear, like in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. On June 28, the Supreme Court ruled on the case, which overturned the legal standard known as the “Chevron deference” doctrine. So, what is this doctrine all about?
Chevron deference dates back to a 1984 Supreme Court case — Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The rule instructed lower courts to defer to federal agencies and their arguments about their own authority. In this case, it was what the word “source” meant under the Clean Air Act of 1963. In 1981, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) changed its determination of what source meant under President Ronald Reagan’s efforts to lift regulatory burdens on industry.
The NRDC challenged the EPA’s interpretation, and in 1982, a circuit court ruled in favor of the NRDC that EPA’s new definition of source was invalid. The oil company Chevron had interest in the case and appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in favor of the EPA that it could make its own determination about what the language in the law meant.
According to Justice John Paul Stevens, the ambiguous meaning of source under the Clean Air Act meant Congress had delegated power to the EPA to make a policy decision about the meaning of the word.
This is a very simplified version of the details of the case, but essentially it gave federal agencies much more power to make law rather than follow direction of Congress. This landmark decision was cited in thousands of cases over the past 40 years until late June when the Supreme Court ruled in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.
This case centered around a challenge from fishing companies of a rule established by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that the fishing companies must pay for the costs of federal regulatory monitors that might be housed on their boats under the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. The company claimed that the act did not allow NMFS to pass the monitors’ costs to the fishing companies, challenging the Chevron deference that was held in the NMFS’ favor during lower court hearings. The Supreme Court agreed and overturned Chevron deference in the process.
What the new ruling boils down to is that just because language in a law might not be well defined, it doesn’t give federal agencies the right to make up their own rules. It also puts more onus on Congress to pass more precise laws and to stop delegating authority to federal agencies.
The ruling is a big deal and will impact many industries, including agriculture. Think about recent history when agencies like EPA made moves to define language in longstanding laws like the Clean Water Act. The Waters of the United States final rule is a prime example.
American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall weighed in with the following statement: “Farm Bureau applauds the U.S. Supreme Court for recognizing the damage Chevron deference has caused to the federal government’s balance of power. For decades, Congress has passed vague laws and left it to federal agencies and the courts to figure out how to implement them. Farm Bureau has been a leading voice on this issue and has argued on behalf of farmers who are caught in a regulatory back-and-forth when administrations change the rules based on political priorities instead of relying on the legislative process.”
Whatever you think about the administrative state, this was a ruling in favor of rolling its power back.