| Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Argued January 17, 2024 | |
| Full case name | Loper Bright Enterprises, et al. v. Gina Raimondo, Secretary of Commerce, et al. Relentless, Inc. et al. v. Department of Commerce, et al. |
| Docket nos. |
22-451 22-1219 |
| Case history | |
| Prior | Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Raimondo, 45 F.4th 359 ( D.C. Cir. 2022)., Loper Bright Enterprises, Inc. v. Ross, 544 F.Supp.3d 82 ( D.D.C. 2021). |
| Questions presented | |
| Whether the Court should overrule Chevron or at least clarify that statutory silence concerning controversial powers expressly but narrowly granted elsewhere in the statute does not constitute an ambiguity requiring deference to the agency. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Jackson (in Loper Bright) took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. | |
Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Docket No. 22-451) and its companion case Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce (Docket No. 22-1219) are pending United States Supreme Court cases regarding Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.. The Court will decide whether or not to overrule Chevron. [1]
Prior history
In 1976, Congress passed the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which was intended to provide for the management of marine fisheries in United States waters. One of the provisions of the act is that the National Marine Fisheries Service (a subsidiary agency of the United States Department of Commerce) may require fishing vessels to "carry" federal monitors on board to enforce the agency's regulations.
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), that courts must defer to the authority of administrative agency's interpretation of a statute whenever both the intent of Congress was ambiguous and the agency's interpretation is reasonable or permissible. In its opinion, the Court outlined a two-step test on when to grant deference, known as the Chevron deference.
In the first step of the test, the Court asks whether there was an unambiguous expression of Congressional intent contained within the statute. If so, then the Court must yield to Congressional intent. If not, then the Court proceeds with the second step of the test. It asks whether the agency's application of the statute was based on a "reasonable" interpretation of ambiguous wording. If so, then the Court should defer to the agency's interpretation of the statute. If not, then the agency's interpretation will likely be deemed impermissible. Here, reasonability is determined by the specific factual circumstances present in the case.
Since being handed down, Chevron has become among the most frequently cited cases in American administrative law. [2] The deference afforded to agencies in the interpretation of statues has come to be known as "Chevron deference".
Background
The New England Council (NEC) is a regional business association that develops fishery management plans for fisheries off the coasts of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. One such fishery is the herring fishery. Unlike in North Pacific and foreign fisheries, the Magnuson-Stevens Act (MSA) does not explicitly require Atlantic herring fisheries pay the costs of federal monitors. In addition, budgets for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had been falling in recent years. As a result, NMFS had been unable to pay for increased monitor coverage in the Atlantic herring fishery.
Starting in 2013, the NEC started to implement a workaround to this issue. It began to develop an amendment to the New England fishery management plans that would give the council the power – though not explicitly given in the MSA – to require the fishing industry to pay the costs of additional monitoring. The NEC submitted this amendment to the NMFS, which in February 2020 published its final rule establishing a standardized process that would require industry-funded monitoring across New England fisheries.
Loper Bright Enterprises is a New Jersey-based family-owned herring fishing company operating in the waters of New England; the company estimated the cost of federal monitoring to be about $700 per day. [3] In February 2020, Loper filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleging that the MSA did not authorize the NMFS to mandate industry-funded monitoring of herring fisheries. The District Court, applying Chevron, granted summary judgment in favor of NMFS. Despite Chevron providing deference in the case of an ambiguously worded statute, the District Court found that the MSA unambiguously provides for industry-funded monitoring of the herring fishery, and thus concluded its analysis at the first step of Chevron. The Court acknowledged Loper's arguments regarding ambiguity in the statutory language, but noted that even if these arguments successfully argued for ambiguity in the text, NMFS's interpretation of the MSA would have been a reasonable reading of the statute.
A three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments in the case on February 8, 2022. The panel included then-Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Later that month, Jackson was nominated to replace Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court. Chief Judge Srinivasan was drawn to replace Justice Jackson after her confirmation. Despite hearing oral arguments, Justice Jackson took no part in the decision of the case.
The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. However, the Circuit Court did not rest its analysis at the first step of Chevron, concluding that the language of the MSA was not completely unambiguous about whether or not it provides for industry-funded monitoring of the herring fishery. Instead, they concluded their analysis at the second step of Chevron, stating that the NMFS reasonably interpreted the MSA when it came to what the Court deemed the "silence on the issue of cost of at-sea monitoring". Judge Justin R. Walker dissented.
Supreme Court
On November 10, 2022, Loper Bright petitioned the Supreme Court to hear its case. In its petition for a writ of certiorari, Loper Bright presented two questions to the Court. First, it asked the Court to rule on whether granting the NMFS the power to require domestic vessels to pay the salaries of monitors it carries was based on a proper application of Chevron. Second, it asked the Court to rule on whether Chevron should be overruled outright, or at least limited in its scope. On May 1, 2023, the Court granted the petition, limited to the second question presented. Due to her prior involvement in the case, Justice Jackson has recused herself from its proceedings; however, the Supreme Court later granted the petition to Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce in October 2023, a closely related case originating out of the First Circuit also challenging the fees issued by the NMFS and the Chevron Deference, which Jackson had no conflict with. [4]
Loper Bright was heard alongside Relentless, Inc. on January 17, 2024. [5] The cases were argued by Roman Martinez (on behalf of Relentless), Paul Clement (on behalf of Loper Bright Enterprises), and Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar (on behalf of the United States in both cases).
See also
References
- ^ De Vogue, Ariana; Cove, Devan (May 1, 2023). "Supreme Court to hear major case on limiting the power of federal government, a long-term goal of legal conservatives". CNN. Retrieved May 13, 2023.
- ^ Hickman, Kristin E.; Pierce, Richard J. (2019). Administrative Law Treatise (6th ed.). New York: Wolters Kluwer. p. 200, §3.2. LCCN 2018043030.
- ^ Liptak, Adam (January 15, 2024). "A Fight Over a Fishing Regulation Could Help Tear Down the Administrative State". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 15, 2024.
- ^ Mcloughlin Jr., James P.; Stukes, Mary Katherine; Werner, Pierce (November 7, 2023). "In Loper Bright and Relentless, Supreme Court returns to high-stakes question of viability of the Chevron doctrine". Reuters. Retrieved January 18, 2024.
- ^ Groppe, Maurine (January 17, 2024). "'How do we know where the line is?' Supreme Court considers 'chevron' principle in major case". USA Today. Retrieved January 17, 2024.