In its 6-3 opinion on June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States ended forty years of the federal courts’ near-complete deference to federal administrative agencies in questions of statutory interpretation. 

The Court’s opinion in Loper Bright Enterprises et al. v. Raimondo reinstalls the authority of the federal courts to decide “all relevant questions of law” as instructed by Congress’s Administrative Procedure Act, and to “say what the law is” as instructed by the Court’s earliest caselaw precedent on the role of the federal judiciary.  Such reinstalled authority replaces the broad swath of judicial deference to federal agencies first granted in Chevron and magnified in Chevron’s progeny.

With Chevron overruled, the federal administrative landscape is changing.  For individuals, businesses, or other organizations and interests governed under federal administrative regulations, this means a change in federal administrative authority and a restrained executive branch.  For now, interested persons should note that challenges to federal administrative authority are empowered.  Further resources from our offices discussing the Loper-Bright opinion in more detail, and discussing the changing federal administrative landscape in light of Loper-Bright and other significant 2024 opinions of the Supreme Court, are forthcoming.

*For background on Chevron deference and the Loper-Bright case, readers should consider this September 5, 2023 article discussing Chevron and the challenge in Loper-Bright, and these collected highlights from the January 17, 2024, oral argument in Loper-Bright at the Supreme Court.