All of this is quite concerning, and the situation is likely to get even worse. In Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, the Supreme Court will decide whether a legal rule known as the Chevron doctrine should be abandoned. The Chevron doctrine, named after the 1984 Supreme Court decision creating it, states that reviewing courts must defer to an agency’s interpretation of a law used to justify a specific enforcement action, such as a rule-making, so long as it is “reasonable.” In other words, the Chevron doctrine is about judicial humility: It says that courts should not evaluate the soundness of particular agency policies.

This is a gross mischaracterization. The Chevron decision states that the court should first refer to whether the statute written by congress answers the specific question at hand.

First, always, is the question whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, that is the end of the matter; for the court, as well as the agency, must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress.

If it does not, the court should defer to the agency’s interpretation of the statute so long as the interpretation is permissible, e.g. does not contradict the letter of the law.

If, however, the court determines Congress has not directly addressed the precise question at issue, the court does not simply impose its own construction on the statute . . . Rather, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency’s answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute.

It does not say that the court must always defer to the agency’s interpretation of the law or that the court does not have the authority to evaluate the soundness of particular agency policies.