Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan offered a scathing dissent Friday as her conservative colleagues transferred the power of federal agencies to the courts in a major decision overturning the Chevron deference.
In overruling that doctrine, Kagan argued that “the majority turns itself into the country’s administrative czar.”
Joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she wrote that the majority replaced a rule of “judicial humility” with one of “judicial hubris.”
“In one fell swoop, the majority today gives itself exclusive power over every open issue—no matter how expertise-driven or policy-laden—involving the meaning of regulatory law,” Kagan wrote.
She added that the decision puts the courts at the center of a wide variety of policy issues, ranging from climate change to artificial intelligence.
"The Court has substituted its own judgment on workplace health for that of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration; its own judgment on climate change for that of the Environmental Protection Agency; and its own judgment on student loans for that of the Department of Education," Kagan wrote.
The 6-3 decision by the court upended a 40-year administrative law precedent in which federal agencies were given leeway to interpret ambiguous laws through rulemaking.
Now, judges will substitute their own best interpretation of the law, instead of deferring to the agencies — effectively making it easier to overturn regulations that govern wide-ranging aspects of American life.
“Chevron is overruled,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in his decision, which was joined by his five conservative colleagues.
Roberts argued that “courts must exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority.”
