Chevron Deference Is a Case of Too Much Judicial Restraint

Conservatives often criticize liberal jurists for “judicial activism”—disregarding laws passed by elected legislators and imposing their own policy preferences instead. On Wednesday the Supreme Court will consider whether to overturn a precedent that went too far in the other direction by surrendering the judicial role of interpreting the law and handing it to unelected bureaucrats and agency heads.

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is a case about fishing regulation. The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a rule requiring the plaintiffs to pay the costs of carrying federal conservation monitors aboard their vessels. The fishermen argued that the service had no legal authority to do so, but the high court’s precedent in Chevron v. NRDC (1984) obligated the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to defer to the government’s interpretation of an “ambiguous” statute.