Energy and environmental policy have long been linked to controversial issues of administrative law. The latest example of this is today, when the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, For 40 years, this law has governed how courts handle cases involving the executive branch’s interpretation of federal laws.
As you may have learned in social studies class in school, the federal government is divided into three separate but equal branches: the legislative branch, which makes the laws; the executive branch, which enforces the laws; and the judicial branch, which interprets the laws. At least, that’s how it should work. In reality, Congress often passes sweeping laws that leave many questions unanswered and details that still need to be worked out. Federal agencies therefore make their own rules and regulations that “interpret” the laws so that they can be implemented. In practice, this means that the details of energy policy are often set not by Congress, but by federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
This has put the courts in a bind. Let’s say an agency comes out with an interpretation of the law that not everyone agrees with (as hard as that may be to believe). Someone could sue, and the courts would ultimately have to decide whether the agency’s interpretation of the law was correct. That could be difficult, both because of the highly technical nature of some of the issues involved and because the laws involved are often ambiguous. To resolve these questions, the Supreme Court developed the Chevron Doctrine that involves two questions: 1) Is the law in question ambiguous? 2) Is the agency’s interpretation of the law reasonable? If the answer to both questions is “yes,” the courts should agree with the agency’s interpretation. If the answer to either question is “no,” the court will not agree, but will decide with fresh eyes what the correct interpretation of the law should be.
But during Chevron Although it ruled for nearly half a century, the courts were never completely satisfied with it. For one thing, judges are supposed to interpret the law, not rely on a group of executive bureaucrats to make it up as they go along. Chevron This reluctance also meant that major changes in energy policy could occur between presidential administrations without changing federal law. Over time, the courts began to create further exceptions to Chevron, such as the “major questions” doctrine (Chevron does not apply if it is a really important issue). And now, with the decision of the court in Loper Bright, the doctrine was completely abandoned.
But while the downfall of Chevron will excite many legal experts, but we should not overestimate its practical impact, at least in the short term. The fact that the Supreme Court had previously limited the doctrine means that eliminating the rest of it will have less impact. This is especially true for environmental regulations such as the Clean Power Plan. Likewise, the Court has called for an end to Chevron for several years, so that the agencies have started to adapt their rules with a view to a time after theChevron World. The FERC, for example, had almost stopped focusing on Chevron as a defense in one’s own legislation.
There is also what might be called the dirty secret of judicial restraint. Chevronif a judge did not like an agency rule, he could usually just say that the rule was unreasonable (or that the law was not ambiguous) and get the same result as if there had been no consideration. In contrast, even with the formal Chevron If this doctrine no longer applies, judges are likely to be more inclined to tacitly follow an agency’s interpretation than if they had to develop an interpretation of the rule from scratch.
The end of Chevron will make a difference, especially in the long run, as certain interpretations of the law become entrenched and cannot be easily changed by a new administration. But the same factors that originally led to Chevron– the technical and often ambiguous nature of federal law – still exist and will continue to matter, no matter what official doctrine says.
