Forty years ago the U.S. Supreme Court decided in the case of Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council that courts must defer to a government agency’s expertise when the statute the agency implements is not clear as to an issue, so long as it is a reasonable interpretation. In Auer v. Robbins (1997), the court applied the Chevron doctrine regarding statutory interpretation to administrative regulations. The Chevron doctrine has been the bedrock of administrative law. The court has addressed issues of the environment, abortion, administrative regulations, affirmative action, voting issues and many other concerns with reference to the doctrine. Some justices have not been hesitant to state that they would overrule or modify the long-standing precedent. Their decisions have not been restricted by stare decisis.

Two cases argued before the court on Jan. 17 will have a significant impact on the lives of everyone. The case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo was brought by a group of herring fisherman based in Cape May, New Jersey. In the case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, they complained about a federal regulation requiring professional fishermen to pay onboard observers to make sure that they are following federal regulations. The monitoring program by the Department of Commerce and National Maritime Fisheries Service is authorized by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which does not specify or expressly address whether the fishermen could be required to pay the cost. The MSA provides that the agency could do what was “necessary and appropriate” to enforce their actions, and it was decided that they could require domestic fishing vessels to contract and pay the salaries of the federal observers they must carry. The district court and a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the agency’s interpretation of the statute. Certiorari was granted as it was in another case, Relentless v. Department of Commerce, which agreed with the Loper decision.