Experts debate: Should SCOTUS have overruled the Chevron doctrine?
We asked two professors and authors of ALM’s Tax Facts with opposing political viewpoints to share their opinions about the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the Chevron doctrine.
In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court held that, under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), courts must not merely defer to agencies’ interpretations of the law when those laws are ambiguous, overturning the decades-old Chevron doctrine. The court further held that courts exercise their own judgment when determining whether an agency has acted within their legal authority. In making their decision, the court found that the APA incorporates a traditional understanding where judges must exercise independent judgment when assessing the meaning of the law. The court noted that it’s up to Congress to decide whether to delegate interpretive authority to agencies. The court also found that the Chevron precedent, which essentially required judicial deference to agencies’ interpretation of the law, prevented judges from performing their core function of judging. While the court did specifically overrule Chevron, the opinion also stated that previously issued opinions that relied on Chevron were not called into question.
We asked two professors and authors of ALM’s Tax Facts with opposing political viewpoints to share their opinions about the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule the Chevron doctrine.
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Below is a summary of the debate that ensued between the two professors.
Byrnes: Regulatory agencies are not elected officials. They should not have the authority that they have been using for decades under the Chevron rules. For far too long, we’ve given regulatory agencies an inappropriate amount of power in this country. Agencies have no special skills when it comes to resolving ambiguities in the law. That’s what the courts are here for.
Bloink: We all know that the bare bones laws enacted by Congress leave much to interpretation. Without interpretation from agencies like the IRS and DOL, taxpayers and advisors alike would be left in the dark as to how to comply with the law. Every advisor knows that when a new law is released, we wait to see how the agencies will interpret complex and ambiguous provisions in the law. It’s simply not realistic to expect Congress to enact laws that account for every contingency and situation.
Byrnes: Judges are elected or appointed based on specific skills when it comes to rendering decisions and interpreting ambiguous situations. Judges are much better equipped to resolve ambiguous legal issues than the agencies. Congress has clear authority to choose to specifically delegate interpretive authority to agencies as long as those delegations remain within the bounds of the constitution. That doesn’t mean courts should automatically be expected to defer to agencies without clear delegation of that authority.
Bloink: Without Chevron’s rule requiring deference to agency interpretations, will each and every ambiguous legal provision have to be litigated before taxpayers are given clarity? We aren’t talking about ambiguous laws that are few and far between. Interpretive guidance from agencies like the IRS and DOL is released on a continual basis. This guidance is critical to taxpayers’ actions.
Byrnes: The court clearly noted that judges are permitted to look to agency interpretations for guidance when reaching their own conclusions. This ruling doesn’t mean that courts will never defer to agencies on important issues. It simply means that they aren’t required to automatically grant deference to agency interpretations without exercising their own independent judgment.
Related: Congress could save federal agencies from Supreme Court’s ruling, its analyst says
Bloink: This ruling essentially gives the courts exclusive authority over every major issue without regard to expertise or whether the issue has political policy implications. Agency employees are explicitly selected based on their expertise in various fields. Courts simply don’t have that specialized expertise. It really makes very little sense to transfer authority from the specialized agencies to judges who simply cannot have specialized expertise in every single relevant field.
Robert Bloink, Esq., LL.M., has taught at the Texas A&M University School of Law and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law; in the past decade, Bloink has initiated $2B+ in insurance & alternative asset class portfolios, and previously served as a senior attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel for the Large- and Mid-Sized Business Division. Bloink is also the co-author of Tax Facts, a reference solution that helps to answer critical tax questions and provides the latest tax developments.
William Byrnes, Esq., LL.M., CWM, is an executive professor and associate dean of special projects at the Texas A&M University School of Law. A pioneer of online legal education, he also is the author or co-author of 20 tax books and legal treatises. Byrnes is also the co-author of Tax Facts, a reference solution that helps to answer critical tax questions and provides the latest tax developments.