In a decision rendered on June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court curtailed the power of federal agencies to implement laws passed by Congress, a verdict that overturned a 40-year precedent that required judges to defer to agency interpretations of ambiguous laws.
The 6-3 opinion overturned what’s known as the “Chevron preference,” which federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), pointed to regularly when defending their regulations in court.
ACA counsel Tom Daly contends, “This preference has acted as a headwind for ACA in reversing erroneous agency interpretations of those portions of the Medicare statute affecting chiropractic as well as the provider nondiscrimination provision in the Public Health Service Act [§2706(a)]. The importance and impact of the Court’s ruling cannot be overstated.”
In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote that instead of assuming that Congress meant to let agencies work out ambiguities in federal law, the courts are meant to decide any confusion. “The better presumption is therefore that Congress expects courts to do their ordinary job of interpreting statutes, with due respect for the views of the Executive Branch,” Roberts wrote. “And to the extent that Congress and the Executive Branch may disagree with how the courts have performed that job in a particular case, they are of course always free to act by revising the statute.”
Roberts wrote that following the decision, courts may give “careful attention” — but not defer — to the executive branch agency defending a rule and only defer to an agency when Congress explicitly said an agency can make its own decision.
The sweeping change came as a result of two cases, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, challenging the legality of a fishery inspection rule that required boats to pay the cost of inspectors. Roberts’ ruling in the Loper Bright case covered both cases.
The Chevron preference stems from a 1984 Supreme Court case, Chevron USA, Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., that upheld a Reagan-administration decision by the Environmental Protection Agency led by Anne Gorsuch, the mother of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.
It’s too early to tell where this goes from here; however, overturning Chevron could mean more conflicting decisions across the country on regulatory challenges, and such a decision would require Congress to write statutes with a level of specificity that forecloses the legal ambiguities that provide openings for lawsuits.
John Falardeau is ACA senior vice president of public policy and advocacy.
Source: Congressional Quarterly
