Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy
Publication Date
4-2025
ISSN
SSN: 1937-9439
Page Number
31
Keywords
statutory interpretation, administrative agencies, Loper Bright
Disciplines
Administrative Law | Law
Abstract
As expected, the Supreme Court declared, in Loper Bright Enterprises. v. Raimondo,' that "Chevron is overruled." The Court was notably vague about the principle that would replace it, declaring that "courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority," but providing little guidance about how this crucial task should be performed. This is an obvious defect in an opinion with innumerable defects, but the problems with the Court's decision go well beyond its specific flaws. The Court did not understand the decision that it claimed to overrule. Chevron is not simply a pro-administrative approach to statutory interpretation that the Court can condemn and brush aside. Rather, the decision is a major conceptual advance. Chevron is the first clear judicial recognition that statutory interpretation is the initial and invariably necessary stage in the process by which administrative agencies enforce the law. In other words, Chevron revealed a reality, a factual situation that the Court is powerless to alter, however much it may desire to do so.
Recommended Citation
Edward L. Rubin,
Chevron Was Not, and Cannot Be, Overruled: The Dullness of Loper Bright, 20 Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. 31
(2025)
Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/faculty-publications/1643