Newswise — On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled what was known as the Chevron doctrine, which gave deference to federal agencies when interpreting statutes.
It’s demise is unlikely to result in the dramatic curtailment of agency power that some had desired and some had feared, said Ronald Levin , the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law and noted expert on administrative law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Chevron’s abandonment was not a big surprise, Levin noted in a recent CNN opinion piece . “It had long been foreshadowed by full-throated condemnations from Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Clarence Thomas, along with many academic critics of the administrative agencies,” he wrote. “When compared with those critiques, however, Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion was relatively restrained,” Levin wrote.
“It did not endorse the broad theories that Gorsuch and Thomas advanced in concurring opinions, such as the thesis that Chevron violated the constitutional duties of the judiciary. Moreover, Roberts acknowledged that Congress often delegates authority to an administrative agency, and when it does so, courts must uphold reasonable interpretations that agencies make within the limits of that authority.” The real significance of the case, Loper Bright Enterprises v.
Raimondo, derives from the fact that statutes are often ambiguous as to whether the question at issue in a given case does lie within the agency’s authority.
