Pittsburgh, PA and Washington, DC
Firm Alert
Chevron is overruled; right to jury trial in many agency enforcement actions is guaranteed; and claim accrual date for Administrative Procedure Act claims are fixed.
(by Gary Steinbauer, Jess Deyoe and Joseph Schaeffer)
In the span of five days, the U.S. Supreme Court issued three decisions with the potential to significantly alter the future of federal administrative law. These decisions, Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, No. 22-451, 603 U.S. — (2024) (Loper Bright) and Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, No. 22-859, 603 U.S. — (2024) (Jarkesy), and Corner Post, Inc. v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, No. 22-1008, 603 U.S. — (2024) (Corner Post) are explained in more detail below. They are poised to have profound implications for federal agency regulatory and enforcement actions, particularly those involving federal agency actions under the major environmental and energy statutes.
In Loper Bright, the Supreme Court has overruled Chevron U.S.A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), a four-decades-old and oft-cited Supreme Court decision that granted federal administrative agencies deference when interpreting ambiguous statutory provisions. More recently, Chevron deference and the familiar two-step test it established has come under increasing scrutiny, with the Supreme Court itself not invoking the test since 2016. The Court’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo is Chevron’s formal death knell.
Chevron, decided in 1984, evolved into a pillar of federal administrative law. …