U.S. Supreme Court has Chevron in its sights

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a case challenging the so-called Chevron doctrine, which had given federal executive agencies latitude to interpret broadly written, often ambiguous laws. The implications for government regulation, and by extension, presidential authority, are extremely significant at a time when profound challenges face a dead-locked Congress.

Background

The Chevron doctrine dates back to 1984, when the Supreme Court unanimously held that when Congress wrote a statute without a clear meaning, courts should defer to the expertise of the federal agency in applying the law, unless its directives were unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.

Since then, judicial deference has permitted federal agencies to interpret broadly written, sometimes vague laws with regulations, often responding to new and emerging challenges—from social media to climate change—without explicit statutory directions from Congress. Even former Justice Antonin Scalia once praised Chevron as providing “needed flexibility.” However, Chevron has never been a blank check, and courts have routinely used it as a means of balancing administrative expertise and statutory requirements.