Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued January 17, 2024 Decided June 28, 2024
Full case name	Loper Bright Enterprises, et al. v. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al. Relentless, Inc. et al. v. Department of Commerce, et al.
Docket nos.	22-451 22-1219
Citations	603 U.S. ___ (more)
Argument	Oral argument
Decision	Opinion
Case history
Prior	Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, 45 F.4th 359 (D.C. Cir. 2022). Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Ross, 544 F.Supp.3d 82 (D.D.C. 2021).
Questions presented
Whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency.
Holding
The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority, and courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous; Chevron is overruled.
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Clarence Thomas · Samuel Alito Sonia Sotomayor · Elena Kagan Neil Gorsuch · Brett Kavanaugh Amy Coney Barrett · Ketanji Brown Jackson
Case opinions
Majority	Roberts, joined by Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
Concurrence	Thomas
Concurrence	Gorsuch
Dissent	Kagan, joined by Sotomayor; Jackson (as it applies to Relentless)
Jackson (in Loper Bright)[a] took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.
Laws applied
Administrative Procedure Act
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984)

Administrative law of the United States
General
Rulemaking Notice of proposed rulemaking Adjudication Administrative law judge Code of Federal Regulations Federal Register
Statutory framework
Administrative Procedure Act Freedom of Information Act NEPA GSA NEA IGA RFA PRA UMRA CRA FVRA
Regulatory coordination
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Administrative Conference Executive orders Cost–benefit analysis (Executive Order 12866)
Judicial review of agency action
Arbitrary and capricious State Farm Chevron deference Auer deference Loper Bright Committed to agency discretion Due process Londoner Bi-Metallic Goldberg Mathews Exhaustion Major questions doctrine Nationwide injunction Ripeness Abbott Labs Standing Lujan
Separation of powers
Appointments Clause Freytag Noel Canning Congressional oversight Authorization Organic statute Appropriation Hearings Senate confirmation Independent agencies Humphrey's Executor Seila Law Unitary executive theory Legislative veto Chadha Nondelegation
Related areas of law (and agencies)
Antitrust and competition FTC CPSC CFPB Banking Treasury OCC FDIC FRB Communication FCC Energy DOE FERC Environment EPA FWS Food FDA CDC Health care HHS Immigration DHS EOIR Labor DOL NLRB Patent/trademark PTO Securities SEC CFTC Taxation IRS TC Trade DOC ITC Transportation DOT STB NTSB Social Security SSA
Related topics
Constitutional law Statutory interpretation
v t e

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court in the field of administrative law, the law governing regulatory agencies. Together with its companion case, Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, it overruled the principle of Chevron deference established in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. (1984), which had generally let the courts defer to interpretation of administrative law to federal agencies.^[1]

Prior precedent

In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), that courts must defer to the authority of administrative agency's interpretation of a statute whenever both the intent of Congress was ambiguous and the agency's interpretation is reasonable or permissible. In its opinion, the Court outlined a two-step test on when to grant deference, known as the Chevron deference. The Court reasoned that ambiguities in statute may be a delegation of authority from Congress, thus limiting a federal court's ability to review an agency's interpretation of the law.

In the first step of the test, the Court would ask whether there was an unambiguous expression of Congressional intent contained within the statute. If so, then the Court must yield to Congressional intent. If not, then the Court would proceed with the second step of the test. It would ask whether the agency's application of the statute was based on a "reasonable" interpretation of ambiguous wording. If so, then the Court would defer to the agency's interpretation of the statute. If not, then the agency's interpretation would likely be deemed impermissible. Here, reasonability was determined by the specific factual circumstances present in the case.

Since being handed down, Chevron had become among the most frequently cited cases in American administrative law.^[2]

Background

In 1976, Congress passed the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was intended to provide for the management of marine fisheries in United States waters. One of the provisions of the act is that the National Marine Fisheries Service (a subsidiary agency of the United States Department of Commerce) may require fishing vessels to "carry" federal monitors on board to enforce the agency's regulations, particularly to prevent overfishing.^[3]

The New England Council (NEC) is a regional business association that develops fishery management plans for fisheries off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. One such fishery is the herring fishery. Unlike in North Pacific and foreign fisheries, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) does not explicitly require Atlantic herring fisheries pay the costs of federal monitors. In addition, budgets for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had been falling in recent years. As a result, NMFS had been unable to pay for increased monitor coverage in the Atlantic herring fishery.

Starting in 2013, the NEC started to implement a workaround to this issue. It began to develop an amendment to the New England fishery management plans that would give the council the power – though not explicitly given in the MSA – to require the fishing industry to pay the costs of additional monitoring. The NEC submitted this amendment to the NMFS, which in February 2020 published its final rule establishing a standardized process that would require industry-funded monitoring across New England fisheries.

Loper Bright Enterprises is a New Jersey-based family-owned herring fishing company operating in the waters of New England; the company estimated the cost of federal monitoring to be about $700 per day.^[4] In February 2020, Loper filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that the MSA did not authorize the NMFS to mandate industry-funded monitoring of herring fisheries. The District Court, applying Chevron, granted summary judgment in favor of NMFS. Despite Chevron providing deference in the case of an ambiguously worded statute, the District Court found that the MSA unambiguously provides for industry-funded monitoring of the herring fishery, and thus concluded its analysis at the first step of Chevron. The Court acknowledged Loper's arguments regarding ambiguity in the statutory language, but noted that even if these arguments successfully argued for ambiguity in the text, NMFS's interpretation of the MSA would have been a reasonable reading of the statute.

A three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in the case on February 8, 2022. The panel included then-Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Later that month, Jackson was nominated to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Chief Judge Srinivasan was drawn to replace Justice Jackson after her confirmation. Despite hearing oral arguments, Justice Jackson took no part in the decision of the case.

The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. However, the Circuit Court did not rest its analysis at the first step of Chevron, concluding that the language of the MSA was not completely unambiguous about whether or not it provides for industry-funded monitoring of the herring fishery. Instead, they concluded their analysis at the second step of Chevron, stating that the NMFS reasonably interpreted the MSA when it came to what the Court deemed the "silence on the issue of cost of at-sea monitoring". Judge Justin R. Walker dissented.

Supreme Court

On November 10, 2022, Loper Bright petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its case. In its petition for a writ of certiorari, Loper Bright presented two questions to the Court. First, it asked the Court to rule on whether granting the NMFS the power to require domestic vessels to pay the salaries of monitors it carries was based on a proper application of Chevron. Second, it asked the Court to rule on whether Chevron should be overruled outright, or at least limited in its scope. On May 1, 2023, the Court granted the petition, limited to the second question presented. Due to her prior involvement in the case, Justice Jackson has recused herself from its proceedings; however, the Supreme Court later granted the petition to Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce in October 2023, a closely related case originating out of the First Circuit also challenging the fees issued by the NMFS and the Chevron Deference, which Jackson had no conflict with.^[5]

Loper Bright was heard alongside Relentless, Inc. on January 17, 2024.^[6] The cases were argued by Roman Martinez (on behalf of Relentless), Paul Clement (on behalf of Loper Bright Enterprises), and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar (on behalf of the United States in both cases). Due to her prior involvement in Loper Bright at the circuit court, Jackson took no part in the Loper Bright decision, but did hear arguments to the consolidated case, Relentless, Inc..

On June 28, 2024, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 decision striking down Chevron deference.^[7] Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which held that Chevron deference conflicted with the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and that courts may not defer to an agency's interpretation of the law simply because a statute is ambiguous.^[8] The Court held that Chevron defied the APA's requirement that courts reviewing agency actions should "decide all relevant questions of law" and "interpret constitutional and statutory provisions."^[9] The majority opinion also found that the 1976 Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act did not authorize officials to create industry-funded monitoring requirements.^[10]

Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissenting opinion, which was joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

See also

• American Hospital Association v. Becerra

Notes

References

External links

• Text of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is available from: Justia  Oyez (oral argument audio) 

• SCOTUS oral arguments audio
• SCOTUS oral arguments transcript
• SCOTUS opinion