Supreme Court upholds but limits agency powers

Authority to interpret regulations at issue

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court denied the conservative legal movement something it has long sought Wednesday, refusing to strip federal agencies of the power to interpret ambiguous regulations.

The decision was unanimous because while upholding agencies’ authority, the justices defined new limits. Deference “is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not,” Associate Justice Elena Kagan said in her opinion.

“Deference can apply only when a regulation is genuinely ambiguous,” Kagan said, and “the agency’s construction of its rule must still be reasonable.” But when those and other conditions are met, she said, courts must accept agency interpretations.

Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch went further in a 42-page concurrence, labeling the decision “more of a stay of execution than a pardon.” He and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh said they would have overruled the court’s precedent on agency deference.

“The doctrine emerges maimed and enfeebled – in truth, zombified,” Gorsuch said.

And Chief Justice John Roberts warned that the court’s refusal to overrule its precedent does not signal the same treatment for another target of conservatives: “Chevron deference,” in which courts are supposed to bend to agency interpretations of laws enacted by Congress.

The ruling is important because agencies run by bureaucrats make decisions all the time about regulations on the environment, the workplace, food and drugs, and other matters affecting millions of Americans. Challengers wanted that power left to trial judges when regulations are challenged in court. Under Supreme court precedents from 1945 and 1997, courts are urged to defer to agencies with expertise the judges lack.

The high court issued two other decisions Wednesday as it raced toward completing its term.

Thursday will be the last day, with major rulings expected on partisan gerrymandering and the Trump administration’s plan to add a citizenship question to the census.

In a case decided 5-4, the court ruled that even sex offenders deserve to have the reasons for their sentences determined by a jury, not a judge.

Gorsuch, joined for the fourth time this term by the four liberal justices, said a federal law requiring sex offenders to return to prison based on a judge's new findings is unconstitutional. Supreme Court precedent gives juries, not judges, the power to determine criminal conduct.

And in a 7-2 ruling, the justices tossed out a Tennessee law that required liquor-store owners to live in the state two years before they could open a business here.

Associate Justice Samuel Alito said the regulation illegally infringed on the Constitution’s protections for interstate commerce.

PATRICK SEMANSKY/AP The Supreme Court issued a major ruling on the power of federal agencies, rather than judges, to interpret ambiguous regulations.