The question
Whether courts must defer to a federal agency's reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute it administers, the rule known as Chevron deference.
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo
Overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council
What the Court decided
The Court ended Chevron deference. Under the Administrative Procedure Act, courts must use their own independent judgment to decide whether an agency has acted within the authority a statute gives it, and may no longer defer to an agency's interpretation just because the statute is ambiguous. The decision overrules Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the 1984 case that had required that deference for forty years.
How the justices split
6-2The Court's opinion
Roberts, joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
Courts, not agencies, say what the law is. The APA directs courts to decide legal questions using their own judgment, so a court may not hand an agency the power to resolve a statute's ambiguity in its own favor. Chevron rested on a fiction that ambiguity is an implicit delegation to the agency, and it is overruled.
Concurring
Thomas, writing alone
Chevron was not only wrong as a matter of the APA but also violated the Constitution's separation of powers by transferring the judicial power to interpret law to the executive branch.
Dissenting
Kagan, joined by Sotomayor, Jackson
The dissent would keep Chevron. It argued that agencies, not courts, have the technical expertise and political accountability to fill statutory gaps in areas like public health and the environment, and that overturning a forty-year-old precedent on which Congress and agencies have relied is a sharp break from the Court's usual respect for its own settled law.
How we know · 4 sourced claims
The Court held that the Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise independent judgment in deciding whether an agency acted within its statutory authority.
Source: syllabus, Held, at 22-451
Courts may not defer to an agency's interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.
Source: syllabus, Held
The decision overrules Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council.
Source: syllabus, Held
Roberts, C.J., wrote for the Court, joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett, JJ.; Kagan, J., dissented, joined by Sotomayor, J. (and Jackson, J., in the companion case); Jackson, J., took no part.
Source: syllabus, lineup