On June 28, 2024, the United States Supreme Court decided Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 144 S. Ct. 2244 (2024). The underlying controversy related to details of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (“MSA”), which was implemented to prevent depletion of fishery resources off the coasts of the United States. The National Marine Fisheries Service (“NMFS”) is responsible for implementing the MSA. The MSA required councils made up of the NMFS, fishery stakeholders, and coastal state authorities to enact plans to conserve fishery resources. The MSA allowed that as part of the plan, fishing vessels falling into certain categories must pay for the cost to take an observer onboard during their fishing expeditions.
The statutory text of the MSA was silent as to Atlantic herring fishing vessels. In 2013, the New England Fishery Management Council proposed an amendment to MSA regulations requiring Atlantic herring fishermen to pay for observers’ trips, absent federal funding. The NMFS approved the amendment in 2020. The Rule required fishing vessels “declare into” fisheries, inform the NMFS that they would be harvesting from the fisheries of specific species before each trip. The Rule also sought to require observers on half of all trips harvesting from the Atlantic herring fishery. The lawsuits granted certiorari by the Supreme Court involve vessels that on at least some occasions declare into the Atlantic herring fishery.
In 1984, the Court decided Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984). Chevron provided a framework by which courts were to decide questions regarding the interpretation of federal statutes administered by federal agencies. The first step of the two-step analysis was to use rules of statutory construction to decide whether Congress had spoken directly to the issue in question. If the answer to the question had been described by Congress in the statute, that was the end of the matter.
If the reviewing court found Congress had not spoken directly to the issue, that is, if the statute was silent or ambiguous regarding the issue, the court was required to defer to the administrative agency if its interpretation was a reasonable reading of the statute. This applied even where the interpretation differed from that of the reviewing court. The Chevron Court held that this was justified by the fact that administering statutes required the formulation of policy, what it described as a judicial tradition of giving considerable weight to the executive branch in determining that policy, and the position of a regulatory agency in developing an appropriate means of implementing a statute.
In Loper Bright, the Court overturned that Chevron deference. The Court based its decision on the constitutional mandate of Article III, and expressed the Court’s understanding of the judicial function, that the courts have power to adjudicate the laws created and enforced by the other branches. The Court found more convincing support can be found for this proposition in the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), passed by Congress in 1946. The APA reads in part: “[t]o the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law, interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and determine the meaning or applicability of the terms of an agency action.” 5 U.S.C. § 706. The Court held that Chevron cannot be reconciled with the APA, which defines the role of federal administrative agencies.
The Court wrote that a number of exceptions to the Chevron rule, including for questions of deep economic and political significance, have made application of the doctrine a complicated undertaking. And, the Court noted it has not deferred to agency application under the Chevron doctrine since 2016.
Critics of the decision maintain that Chevron doctrine allowed for the appropriate regulation of various activities in the United States as required by Congress. Those critics fear that overturning the doctrine will make regulating certain activities much harder for executive agencies.
Proponents of the decision hold that the Chevron doctrine allowed federal agencies to overstep the mandates they were given by Congress. They contend the Court’s decision in Loper Bright will prevent further unintended growth of regulating power and perhaps allow for the reigning in of executive agencies they believe are inefficient and often overstep their statutory grants of authority.