Noah Feldman, Columnist

The Supreme Court Just Gave Itself a Lot More Power

For decades, the Chevron doctrine advised judges to defer to federal agencies’ subject matter expertise. Those days are gone.

June 28, 2024 at 3:38 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

The revolution has not been televised
Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg

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The US Supreme Court has overruled the Chevron decision, a basic building block of administrative law, thereby striking a blow against the power and authority of all federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency. The ruling, in the cases of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce, marks the culmination of the conservative revolution at the court, joining recent landmark decisions overturning abortion rights, barring affirmative action, expanding gun rights and more.

Although the 40-year-old Chevron precedent was mostly unknown to non-lawyers until recently, overturning it will have profound consequences for the legal system and the whole apparatus of government through regulation.