Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

The Court overruled Chevron deference, holding that courts must exercise independent judgment on statutory meaning.

Overview

Herring fishermen challenged a rule requiring them to fund at-sea monitors, and the case became the vehicle for reconsidering Chevron. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the Court, held that the Administrative Procedure Act requires reviewing courts to decide legal questions independently, and that deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes conflicts with the judicial duty to say what the law is. Statutory ambiguities are resolved through ordinary tools of construction, though agency interpretations may still inform the analysis. Loper Bright ended forty years of Chevron deference, recalibrating power among courts, agencies, and Congress.