Supreme Court decision tames administrative state, pressures Congress to be more clear with laws

The Supreme Court has now put Congress on notice that it needs to do a better job of writing laws and can no longer expect federal agencies to clean up their poorly written messes.

The justices, in a 6-3 ruling, overturned a 40-year-old precedent in the Chevron case and said courts should no longer defer to agencies’ interpretations of federal law in cases where what Congress wrote is ambiguous.

The result, legal analysts said, is a groundbreaking rewrite of modern U.S. government that will constrain the ability of bureaucrats to meddle in policy and will heap pressure on Capitol Hill to be more clear in writing laws.

Congressional Republicans said they’re up for the challenge, and called the ruling the starting gun igniting a sprint to tame the expansive administrative state.

“Congress has sidestepped our legal duties for far too long and today’s ruling puts us back in the driver’s seat,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman, Arkansas Republican and chair of the House Natural Resources Committee. “We’re no longer going to let federal agencies fill in the details when it comes to the policies we enact; instead, this will hopefully usher in a new era of congressional specificity and thoughtful legislative work.”

The Republican Study Committee, a group of conservatives in the House, had anticipated the ruling with a report ahead of the decision detailing future legislative steps if the Chevron standard was overturned.

One target bill would require federal courts to conduct de novo reviews of any agency actions, meaning judges would not be allowed to rely on Chevron or any other previous court decisions in deciding of whether the regulation is valid. Another would put large regulations on hold once they are challenged in the courts until the judicial review is completed.

Lawmakers on the left also saw a call to arms in the court’s ruling, albeit on a different battleground.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, called on Congress to pass the Stop Corporate Capture Act to enshrine Chevron deference in the law, effectively overturning Friday’s decision. The legislation would also require agencies to disclose more about the studies they are using to reach their decisions.

Ms. DeLauro said it would tamp down on the power of wealthy individuals and corporations to skew the data agencies rely on when they issue major public interest regulations.

Bureaucrats vs. fishers

The cases before the justices this year were brought by fishers challenging a 2020 federal rule that had them footing the bill for federal agencies to monitor their catch.

The fishers said the original law as written didn’t envision any such payment requirement, and the agency was acting illegally in passing the compliance costs on to the privately owned boats. Lower courts had sided with the agency, citing the Chevron principle that bureaucrats’ actions be given deference when the underlying law is unclear and an agency’s interpretation is considered reasonable.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said Chevron got it wrong, muting Congress and pushing judges to defer rather than judge. He said it’s time to restore the judging.

“Courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, as the [Administrative Procedure Act] requires,” the chief justice wrote, joined by the court’s other five GOP-appointed members. “Careful attention to the judgment of the Executive Branch may help inform that inquiry. And when a particular statute delegates authority to an agency consistent with constitutional limits, courts must respect the delegation, while ensuring that the agency acts within it. But courts need not and under the APA may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.”

But Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s three Democratic appointees, said Chevron has become the bedrock of modern U.S. government, allowing experts at federal agencies to control key decisions.

“Agencies have expertise in those areas; courts do not,” Justice Kagan wrote.

She said Congress has willingly turned these sorts of complex decisions over to the agencies, and the courts should not upend that.

“Or to put the point more affirmatively, Congress has kept Chevron as is for 40 years,” she said. “Congress has not agreed with the view of some Justices that they and other judges should have more power.”

Chief Justice Roberts, though, said Chevron had proved “unworkable,” with judges struggling to figure out how and when to apply it.

The ruling answered big questions about who decides major policies.

Democrats, at least right now, have argued the deciders should be bureaucrats at agencies who have expertise in their areas. They viewed those bureaucrats as an independent bulwark against well-financed industries lobbying for more favorable treatment, and they worried Friday’s decision erases that check.

”The Supreme Court has handed special interests a giveaway by dramatically reducing the ability of federal agencies to address climate change, ensure the stability of financial markets, reduce gun violence, and many other critical issues,” said Sen. Cory A. Booker, New Jersey Democrat.

Forty years ago, though, when Chevron v. NRDC, was decided, it was left-leaning groups who were attacking the Reagan administration’s decision-making. The NRDC in that case was the Natural Resources Defense Council, a liberal environmental lobby group.

The Supreme Court had largely tossed Chevron on the ash heap before Friday’s ruling. Legal analysts said it had been nearly a decade since the court last upheld an agency action by citing Chevron.

But it remained precedent, and therefore binding on lower courts, who did cite it frequently.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, who has long advocated for the doctrine to be overturned, said he and his colleagues have now freed those lower courts, too.

“Today, the Court places a tombstone on Chevron no one can miss,” Justice Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion.

Chief Justice Roberts did limit Friday’s ruling, saying it doesn’t taint past court decisions — at least 70 at the Supreme Court and thousands in lower courts — that relied on Chevron deference. Those will continue to be good law, he said.