Supreme Court will consider major case on power of federal regulatory agencies

[Elderberry]

Howe on the Court 5/1/2023

Nearly 40 years ago, in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, the Supreme Court ruled that courts should defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute as long as that interpretation is reasonable. On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to reconsider its ruling in Chevron.

The question comes to the court in a case brought by a group of commercial fishing companies. They challenged a rule issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service that requires the fishing industry to pay for the costs of observers who monitor compliance with fishery management plans.

Relying on Chevron, a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the companies’ challenge to the rule. Judge Judith Rogers explained that although federal fishery law makes clear that the government can require fishing boats to carry monitors, it does not specifically address who must pay for the monitors. Because the NMFS’s interpretation of federal fishery law as authorizing industry-funded monitors was a reasonable one, Rogers concluded, the court should defer to that interpretation.

More: https://amylhowe.com/2023/05/01/supreme-court-will-consider-major-case-on-power-of-federal-regulatory-agencies/

[Fishrrman]

Could the Supreme Court do to Chevron, what it just did to Roe last year...?

[Kamaji]

Could the Supreme Court do to Chevron, what it just did to Roe last year...?

Certainly.  IMHO, the best guide to what the Court is likely to do is to see what Gorsuch has had to say about it over the years, realize that the Court, and courts generally, like to have crutches like interpretative reliance canons such as this because it both makes their jobs easier and promotes uniformity of decision-making amongst a wide variety of different courts, and the most likely scenario is that Chevron deference gets scaled back.