Media Coverage
Source: E&E News
Media Coverage
Press Contacts: Erik Cummins, Matt Hyams, Taina Rosa, Olivia Thomas
01.29.25
The Supreme Court’s June 2024 decision on Loper Bright v. Raimondo reversed years of legal precedent under which courts deferred to reasonable agency interpretations when the statutory language was unclear, and the Trump administration believes the reversal will help it slash regulations, according to a recent article by E&E News.
Even though the decision ends the precedent—also known as the Chevron doctrine—and makes the courts the final arbiter in interpreting unclear written statutes, Environmental & Natural Resources partner Jeff Knight said that courts would still uphold rules based on the best reading of the law as they see it.
“In the cases since Loper Bright over the summer, courts have been much more attentive to interpreting statutes and reversing agency actions based upon their own best reading of the statute,” Knight noted.
“Agencies have argued there can be multiple ‘reasonable’ interpretations of ambiguous statutory text, and courts have deferred to those even when they’re polar opposite to one another,” he added. “That’s gone. That playbook is out.”
Additionally, because agencies will need to make a strong case for why their reading the statute was the best one possible, Knight added: “Any effort to identify and change previous agency interpretations or regulations that were based on Chevron deference would itself not get Chevron deference.”
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