When Congress writes ambiguous statutes, someone has to fill the gaps. Federal agencies do day-to-day interpretation as they enforce laws, but courts ultimately decide whether the agency's reading is lawful. The Chevron doctrine answered the conflict by telling courts to defer to the agency when the statute was ambiguous and the agency's reading was reasonable.
The Supreme Court announced the doctrine in Chevron U.S.A. v. NRDC (1984), a case about how EPA defined "stationary source" under the Clean Air Act. Lower courts cited Chevron in more than 18,000 decisions across environmental, labor, financial, and health regulation, giving agencies broad latitude to update rules without returning to Congress.
In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (June 28, 2024), Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a 6-3 majority overruling Chevron and holding that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise independent judgment on statutory meaning. Justice Kagan dissented for Sotomayor and Jackson. Post-Loper Bright, courts no longer defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, though they may still respect agency expertise as persuasive authority.
Chevron's reversal moves regulatory power from agencies that hire scientists and economists to courts staffed by lifetime-tenured judges. Whoever interprets ambiguous statutes ends up writing the de facto rule, so the shift matters every time EPA, FDA, or Labor tries to update standards.
People often think Loper Bright eliminated all agency power. In practice, agencies still administer statutes — they just lose automatic deference, so their interpretations must persuade a judge on the merits rather than win by default.
Chevron's reversal moves regulatory power from agencies that hire scientists and economists to courts staffed by lifetime-tenured judges. Whoever interprets ambiguous statutes ends up writing the de facto rule, so the shift matters every time EPA, FDA, or Labor tries to update standards.
People often think Loper Bright eliminated all agency power. In practice, agencies still administer statutes — they just lose automatic deference, so their interpretations must persuade a judge on the merits rather than win by default.