The U.S. Supreme Court is currently considering its most consequential challenge to “the administrative state” in decades. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, the petitioners are fishermen who challenged a specific regulation concerning a requirement to host observers on herring fishing boats. Beyond that specific challenge, petitioners have also asked the court to overturn the seminal doctrine announced 40 years ago in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984).

Chevron established the principle that courts should defer to an agency’s interpretation of its governing statute if the relevant provision is ambiguous. Under the Chevron doctrine, which lower courts routinely apply to resolve challenges to administrative regulations, courts first determine whether the relevant statutory provision is ambiguous. If it is, the court then examines whether the agency’s interpretation of the provision is reasonable. So long as the agency’s take is reasonable, courts will defer to it. Consequently, Chevron gives agencies significant power in determining the scope of their own authority.