The Supreme Court of the United States issued its opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo on 28 June 2024. The Court held that federal courts may not defer to an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute merely because the interpretation is reasonable. That practice, known as Chevron deference, had been the governing framework since 1984.
The dispute began with a National Marine Fisheries Service regulation issued under the Magnuson-Stevens Act. The rule required certain herring vessels to carry observers and, in some circumstances, to pay the observers’ wages. Commercial fishing companies challenged the rule, arguing that the statute did not authorise the agency to impose those costs.
Under Chevron, a reviewing court first asked whether Congress had spoken to the precise question. If the statute was silent or ambiguous, the court deferred to the agency so long as the agency’s reading was reasonable. The Court in Loper Bright rejected that second step. It read § 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act as an instruction that courts, not agencies, decide what the law is, using the ordinary tools of statutory construction. Agency views may still inform a court, the opinion said, but they do not control.
The judgment does not vacate every regulation previously upheld under Chevron. The Court stated that those decisions remain subject to statutory stare decisis. What changed is the method courts are to use in new disputes about the meaning of organic statutes.