Yale Journal on Regulation / Notice & Comment

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The Fifth Circuit, in the Post-Chevron Era, Rejects Regulations to Implement the No Surprises Act

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By: Stuart Silverman
 

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Chevron U.S.A Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council was a seminal case in administrative law for forty years. The Court in 1984 announced the Chevron doctrine in that case, the principle that courts are to afford deference to administrative agencies when interpreting federal regulatory statutes. Under that doctrine, the Court established a two-step framework. Under this formula, where a federal statute is ambiguous, or silent, on a particular aspect of the law, courts deferred to the agency’s reading of the law if the agency’s interpretation was reasonable.

 

The Chevron doctrine was highly criticized in legal circles. The principle argument made against the doctrine was that it violated the U.S. Constitution that envisions three co-equal branches of government.

 

It was argued that the constitutional roles for each of the three branches have been compromised under the Chevron doctrine. This is so since Congress does not always write legislation in clear terms, and it assumed, under a congressional delegation, that the agency charged with enforcement of the statute would take steps to more precisely define the legislation. Thus, Congress avoided making policy choices, ordinarily within the realm of the legislature. Further, under the doctrine, federal courts often deferred to the agency’s reading of a statute when it deemed the law ambiguous or silent on a particular aspect of the law. Commentators insisted that Congress abdicated its role to enact legislation, and the judicial branch avoided its duty to interpret the law by hastily concluding a statute is ambiguous, thus deferring to an agency’s reading of the law. The perceived infirmities of the Chevron doctrine led to a call for the doctrine to be overruled by the Supreme Court.

 

On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in Loper Bright Enterprises, et al. v. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al. (“Loper Bright”) and in Relentless, Inc. et al. v. Department of Commerce, et al. (“Relentless”) wherein the Court overruled the Chevron doctrine. By casting aside the doctrine of agency deference, the Court established new principles that significantly limit an agency’s authority to interpret ambiguous statutes, and anointed federal courts with the role, as intended by the Constitution, to decide the meaning of statutes using their independent judgment.

 

The author has posted this article published by the Yale Journal on Regulation because of the wide-ranging impact arising from the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the Chevron doctrine. This is so with regard to a wide swath of industries, and in particular for the health sector and entities affected by environmental regulatory regimes. The article discusses a Fifth Circuit’s decision which is a most recent ruling by a court of appeals applying the new principles established by the Supreme Court in Loper Bright and Relentless on the limited authority of agencies, and on a court’s role to interpret legislation, post-Chevron. The article is here.

 

NOTE: Stuart Silverman has authored a separate article that provides an indepth analysis of the Supreme Court’s ruling in Loper Bright and Relentless wherein it overruled the Chevron doctrine. That article is pending publication and will be posted soon thereafter. 

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